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spn-rewrites · 2 years ago

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01x01 (PART 1)

Season One Episode One: Pilot

A/N: hey guys, I re-edited the pilot and am going to work my way down and because they weren’t originally posted on this account, I’m gonna re-post them here - all tags will stay in tack.

Summary: Dean and Y/N go find Sam

Word Count: 3.1k

Part 2 Part 3

It’s been a few years since you and Dean let Sam run off and go to college. He wanted out of this life and there wasn’t really much you could have done to stop him, so you and Dean went off on your own. You took up Sam’s position, doing research and finding jobs. Sometimes you followed leads from John, but it really was just the two of you.

For ten years you had been hunting things with these boys. It wasn’t your first choice of a life, much like it wasn’t Sam’s. But you learned to embrace it because like Dean, you owed your life to John Winchester.

The flames were behind you, englulfing the only home you had ever known, and you were sitting on the side of the road with your knees pulled up to your chest praying to a God you no longer believed in. That’s when an older, scruffy haired man kneeled down in front of you and put his hand on your knee. “I’m John Winchester, a friend of your mom’s. We’re gonna take care of you, okay?”

You weren’t sure how you knew you could trust him but something in his eyes told you that you could. You had seen photos of him and your mom around the house - it was a vague memory but it was there.

The boys behind him didn’t look familiar but John introduced them to you as his

sons and the older one immediately took you under his wing and the younger one made you a bowl of cereal when you got back to the hotel that they were staying at and a few months after your fifteen birthday, you were learning about the lore of demons.

That’s how you found yourself sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala that Dean loved so much, on your way to Standford to go get Sam from college. He made a noble choice, leaving the hunting life. One that maybe you could have made if leaving Dean behind didn’t feel like ripping out one of your own ribs.

However, John was on a hunt and hadn’t come back yet. Being gone a few days at a time without hearing a peep wasn’t unusual, but it had been weeks at this point and Dean was getting worried, so you guys packed up to go collect Sam in hopes he’d help you find him. You had tried to silently protest involving the younger brother, knowing he didn’t want to, but Dean wasn’t one to argue with.

“What is it with you? You don’t want help?” Dean accused, glancing at you from the road.

“That’s not it, I just-”

“You just what, Y/N?” He interrupted you. Your eyebrows raised and you took a breath, ready to fight back. Sometimes Dean just knows exactly where to push your buttons.

“Sam doesn’t want this, Dean. What part of that don’t you understand? He’s happy, he’s got a girlfriend,” you blurted out, your words stopping in your throat as soon as you said it. That was not something that Sam wanted you to tell Dean, but it was too late now and Dean just stared at you. “Her name is Jess,” you sighed out.

“Jess? Seriously? He didn’t think to tell me this?” The Impala started driving faster, picking up speed down the road.

“Can you slow down?” You braced yourself out of habit, used to Dean driving reckless as hell but when he got mad, the reckless seemed more dangerous.

“I’m just pissed, okay?” Dean snapped. You held your hands up in defense and Dean pulled back, taking a deep breath and letting his foot off the peddle. You drove the rest of the way in silence.

You stood outside of the apartment complex that Sam lived in and tried to investigate a way to get inside. “We could use the fire escape,” you suggested. Dean looked down at you with a grin growing on his face, “what?” You deadpanned, still kind of irritated by your last conversation but Dean was smiling now so maybe it was over.

“I like the way you think, kiddo.” Dean patted your back and he started scaling the fire escape, you followed him until you reached a window. The hallways were dark and damp and you wondered how Sam even lived in a place like this before you remembered that this was an upgrade compared to the hotels the boys grew up in.

Dean shushed you as he slowly opened the door to the apartment, and you followed him inside. There was a rustle coming from the other side of the room, a door cracking and then you saw a shadow emerge, most likely Sam.

Sam caught Dean off guard, trying to get him from behind but Dean was not that easy to take down and the two brothers began fighting, Sam blocking Dean’s punches and Dean trying to tackle him to the ground. Eventually, the bigger of the two pinned the smaller. “Whoa, easy, tiger,” Dean grinned.

“Dean?” Sam exclaimed, looking up at his brother and then seeing you. “Y/N? You scared the crap out of me!” Sam was breathing heavier now as you stood next to the two boys, looking down at them with a smile on your face.

“That’s 'cause you’re out of practice,” you said smugly, although you didn’t do any of the fighting and had no reason to be except to push Sam’s buttons. Sam grunted and flipped Dean over, now pinning the older brother.

“Guess not,” Dean sighed. “Get off of me,” he groaned and pushed Sam off of himself and almost into you, but you put your hands out to stop Sam from falling and as soon as he felt your touch he turned around, a smile plastered to his face.

“Hey, pretty girl,” he wrapped his arms around you tight, your heart fluttering at his nickname for you as you hugged him back.

“Sam?” You let go of him as a figure came out of the shadows, Jess you assumed. Sam had told you a lot about her the past year or so, as you guys were in constant contact unlike Sam and Dean, however, you had never met the girl. She was a lot prettier than you imagined, a blonde bombshell.

“Hey, Jess,” Sam said, his face almost seemed disappointed that he had to introduce you and Dean to her finally. Part of you wondered if he wanted to keep his family at an arms length for the rest of his life. “This is my brother Dean and my friend, Y/N,” he introduced.

Dean clearly noticed how pretty Jess was, his eyes falling on her face and then her chest. “I love the smurfs,” he smiled, referring to her pajama shirt but also only noticing because of her boobs. “I gotta tell you, you are completely out of my brother’s league.” Dean flirted, Jessica’s face unamused.

“Well, let me just put something on,” Jess said, turning to walk away, clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation.

“No, no. I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean protested. You snorted from behind Sam and Dean turned around to glare at you. You smiled back and Dean turned his attention back to his brother. “However, I do have to steal your boyfriend here to talk about some private family business, but nice meeting you.” His last words had a flirty tone to them and you smacked Dean in the arm when he finished.

“What is your problem?” You whispered to him but he just smiled and raised his eyebrows because he knew that you already knew exactly what his problem was.

“No,” Sam said, his tone was suddenly more serious. “Whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her.” Sam moved to stand next to Jess, wrapping his arm around her waist. That was a bold move for the younger Winchester and you sucked in a deep breath.

“Okay, um, Dad hasn’t been home in a few days,” Dean said with no hesitation.

“So, he’s working overtime on a ‘Miller Time’ shift, he’ll stumble back in sooner or later.”

“John’s on a hunting trip, Sam.” You said, putting emphasis on the word ‘hunting’ causing Sam’s face to drop and dismissing Jessica from the conversation. You waved goodbye to her as she went back into the other room.

Sam thought it’d be better to talk outside, so you followed them down the stairs, your little feet having a hard time catching up with theirs and being a whole flight of stairs behind them, you only caught a small amount of their conversation - Dean begging Sam to help us find John. “Dad’s missing. I need you to help us find him.”

“You remember the Poltergeist in Amherst or the Devil’s Gate in Clifton? He’s always missing and he’s always fine,” Sam said, their voices getting louder as they stopped at a landing and waited for you to catch up. You were out of breath when you reached them, “and you said I was the one out of shape?” Sam joked as you put your hands on your knees to help catch your breath. You fake laughed as Dean kept going.

“Not for this long, now are you going to come with me or not?”

Sam started following Dean and you hesitantly chased after. “I’m not,” Sam’s words made you stop, although you knew that that would be his answer.

“Why?” You asked. Sam turned around to look at you, his features suddenly softened.

“I swore I was done hunting, for good.” Sam sighed and you almost took a step towards him, but you stopped yourself.

“Come on, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t that bad.” Dean said, but you knew that that was a weak attempt to make Sam change his mind about coming with us. Dean turned and walked away, but you only followed after Sam did.

“Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the monster under my bed, he gave me a .45,” Sam said as we started to exit the building.

“Well what was he supposed to do?” Dean said. You chuckled and looked at him, cocking your head to the side wondering what it was that Dean thought John was supposed to do. Sometimes, you thought Dean was just so delusional that he thought all of this was normal.

“Seriously Dean?” You asked, knowing full well that Dean would do and say anything to defend his father’s name, even to Sam.

“I was nine years old,” Sam said, his voice going quieter and you bit your lower lip. You felt sad for him for a moment, never really understanding how traumatized Sam was with his growing up. For you, it started later. You knew it wasn’t normal and you knew how life was supposed to be for a kid but Sam never got that and his yearning for it was clear. “He was supposed to say, ‘don’t be afraid of the dark’”

“Don’t be afraid of the dark? You should be afraid of the dark!” Dean’s voice got louder, “you know what’s out there. Look at Y/N for Christ sake, she didn’t get a .45 and look what happened to her.” Dean mumbled and pushed open the gate and went outside. You were taken aback by Dean’s words, gasping a little. He had a tendancy of saying things he didn’t mean but he didn’t bring up your past very often.

“What the hell is your problem?” Sam tried to defend you but you grabbed his arm, making him stop. Dean threw open the front door of the building, the traffic from outside coming in for a brief morning until the door closed behind him. “What? That’s not okay!” He snapped back at you, but sighing and letting out a breath when you looked at each other.

You nodded, “I know, but just let it go.” It took a second, but Sam finally agreed. You motioned for the front door and with a deep breath, Sam pushed it open and you followed him outside. With the cold air hitting your faces, Sam continued to fight back with Dean like nothing happened.

“Dad’s obsession with killing the thing that killed mom, the way we grew up, killing everything we can find because we can’t find it,” Sam argued.

“We save a lot of people, Sam.” Sam just scoffed at his brother’s reply.

“You think mom would have wanted this for us? You think Penelope would have wanted this for Y/N?” Sam made Dean stop dead in his tracks and he turned around to face his brother, anger in his eyes. “The weapon training and melting silver into bullets?”

“So you’re just going to live some normal, apple-pie life?” Dean snapped.

“No, not normal. Safe.” Sam spat as you three got to the car, your mind still reeling. You put your hand on the door handle as they argued. You wished you could just disappear, any mention of your mother makes you wanna die. You weren’t sure you ever fully got over her death and accepted the fact that this was your new life now, hunting ghosts and demons and any other creepy crawling that lurked at night.

“Dad is in real trouble right now, if he’s not dead already. I can feel it,” Dean pleaded. His whole demeanor changed, sometimes at an astonishing rate.

You pushed yourself away from the car, forgetting about the pounding in your head and put your hand on Dean’s shoulder. “He’s not dead, Dean.” Dean just looked at you, sadness in his eyes and you felt bad for him. Maybe that was the reason you could never actually stay mad at him, because no matter what he said to you, you knew he never meant it.

“We can’t do this alone,” Dean said. “We don’t want to,” his voice softened when he said this and you looked up at Sam, a small smile playing on your lips.

Dean popped the trunk to the Impala and started looking for John’s files while Sam and you leaned against either side of the trunk, looking in. You remembered the basics of John’s hunt so you started talking, not waiting for Dean anymore. “He started to look at this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California.”

“About a month ago, this guy,” Dean found the file and handed Sam a picture of the guy who went missing, “they found his car but he’d vanished.”

Sam looked at the photo and speculated, “well, maybe he was kidnapped.”

You rolled your eyes and grabbed the next photo from the file in Dean’s hands, “here’s another one in April, and then December ‘04, ‘03, ‘98, ‘92… 10 of them over the past 20 years.” Dean handed Sam all the articles and photos belonging to the cases you just listed off. You both looked at him smuggly, knowing that you debunked his speculations.

“All men, too. All the same 5-mile stretch of road, it started happening more and more so Dad went to go dig around,” Dean said.

“That was three weeks ago, we haven’t heard from him since,” your voice softened as Sam looked up at you. You held eye contact until Dean spoke.

“And then, we get this voicemail.” Dean pulled out his phone and played the voicemail that John left you last night, the whole reason that you booked it to go get Sam.

“Dean, something is starting to happen..I think it’s serious

I need to try to figure out what’s going on. Be very careful,

Protect Y/N. We are all in danger.”

You watched Sam the whole time as he listened to it, his facial structure not really changing. “You know there’s EVP on that,” Sam said, nodding to the recording.

“Not bad, Sammy. Kind of like riding a bike isn’t it?” Dean smiled between his brother and you but then continued to explain to Sam how you slowed down the tape to find out what that EVP was saying. When Dean played it back, all it said was “I can never go home.”

Sam whispered it back to him while Dean slammed the trunk and then leaned against it. You walked over to stand in front of him, your arms crossed, “we really need your help, Sam.” You begged.

“In almost two years, we never bothered you or asked you for a thing,” Dean tried to guilt trip Sam which you did not agree with but it was hard to stop Dean from doing what he wanted. Sam sighed, finally agreeing to go.

“I’ll help you find him, but I have to get back first thing Monday morning.” Sam warned but you didn’t wait for him to finish speaking. You ran to him, wrapping your arms around his shoulder and he couldn’t help but chuckle and hold you up by your waist. You were excited that Sam was coming back, if only for one hunt. Although you and Dean had become the best of friends over the years, Sammy always held a special place in your heart. He was kind and sweet and quiet, just like you used to be before your mother died. He reminded you of your youth.

“What’s on Monday?” You asked as you pulled yourself away from Sam and he started walking back into the apartments to collect his stuff.

“I have an interview,” Sam said, looking at Dean.

“A job interview? Skip it,” Dean shrugged his shoulders but after Sam said ‘interview’ you remembered exactly what he meant. Sam had told you just a few days ago that he had gotten an interview for the Stanford Law School and that was on Monday.

“No, it’s a law school interview,” you whispered, looking at Dean. Dean’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked at you.

“It’s my whole future on a plate,” Sam explained, Dean giving him the same confused look he gave you. “We got a deal or not?” Sam asked, Dean eventually nodded and Sam left to go get his things while the two of you stayed in the Impala and waited.

“You knew about all of this and didn’t tell me?” Dean asked, his voice sounded a mix of anger and disappointment but you didn’t know what to make of it.

“Sam asked me not to and all this stuff is important to him, Dean.” You explained yourself, throwing your hands towards the apartment building where Sam was building a life.

“We were important to him at one point, too, Y/N.” You sighed, knowing Dean was right but you still defended Sam.

“Drop it, okay? You know now and that’s all that matters.” You knew that wasn’t going to fly especially when Dean scoffed and looked out his window instead of at you.

Tags: @ kaelyn-lobrutto24

#supernatural #supernatural rewrite #01x01 #spn #spn rewrite #sam x reader #dean x reader #supernatural pilot #season one episode one #spn fic #spn imagine #reader insert #sam winchester #dean winchester #sam winchester x reader #dean winchester x reader

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plaid-shirtsandvibranium-arms · 3 years ago

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Nemesis: Retribution (5)

Summary: 10 years after the Avengers had left you for dead during a mission gone wrong, you unexpectedly re-enter their lives. Wholly unrecognizable from the person they used to know and now with a new team behind you, they ask for your help to stop a chain of syndicates who were manufacturing and peddling the super soldier serum. You were determined to say no until the chance at the vengeance you had been chasing for years was added to the offer.

Fandoms: Avengers, Marvel, MCU, The Punisher, Daredevil

Pairings: Female Reader x (Frank Castle, Billy Russo, Matt Murdock, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Pietro Maximoff)

Warnings: EXPLICIT SMUT. SHAMELESS SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR (18+ ONLY. I WILL BLOCK YOU), human rights violations, polyamorous relationships, reverse harem, blatant disregard for canon timelines and events, angst, Punisher canon level of violence and gore, strong language, mentions of trauma, mentions of character death, fluff if you squint,

A/N: Okay okay. I’m finally happy with how this turned out. Goddamn that’s a lot of words. I’ll see you all in the party in the comments and reblogs! I love reading what you think. Don’t be shy. Jump in!

No permission is granted to repost, steal, or translate my work. Not even a credit makes it okay. Tumblr is the only place I post my writing. If you see it anywhere else please report it.

[gif not mine. credit to: this glorious gif post.]

Series Masterlist | Full Masterlist

1:5 Lemons

2 missions.

A 50/50 chance of getting Salvacion.

Your heart was pounding in your chest and you were on the verge of getting lightheaded from the anticipation. A decade of chasing this bastard and this was the closest you had ever gotten to him. The man was not only deadly in skill, but always seemed to manage to give you the slip every single time. Forcing yourself to face the life you left was worth it if it meant finally avenging Lily.

The briefings the past week had been long, but they were important to make sure everyone was prepared to end this. You were minutes away now from shipping off to the mission and your whole body was buzzing.

This was it.

There were two locations that you had to hit at the same time. Two locations with large shipments that you had to stop from reaching its destination. The teams needed to be split.

"Let's go over this one more time," Steve started, fully suited up in black that was truly a far cry from his old blue and red ensemble. "I'll be leading a team into the shipment yards with Bucky and Nem at the front. Sam will be on air support. Billy will manage a team of snipers in the surrounding area."

This was the smaller of locations, but with the larger shipment. The location itself entailed a more strategic approach. You weren't happy that there was a chance that Salvacion would be at the other location, but having Frank on that team put you somewhat at ease. He understood more than anyone how important this was to you and he promised he would take Salvacion alive. He was yours to kill.

Frank always kept his promises.

"I'll be leading the other team into the industrial district," Frank continued, his signature vest strapped tight across his chest. "Pietro and Matt will cover the perimeter and I'll be charging in with Nat and Wanda."

Their location was more complicated. It was too close to the residential district and the warehouses there ran 24/7. There was a high risk of civilian casualty if they weren't careful which was why almost everyone who was powered was assigned to that group. They needed every capability they could pull to make sure no innocent blood was spilled.

"Good," Steve nodded. "We'll both have a group of agents with us too. They've been briefed and are prepping transport as we speak. We leave in 20 minutes."

Everyone nodded their understanding, grabbing their gear and heading down to the transport docks. There was a fleet of cars standing by that would be used, gassed up and ready to go. Your hands were drumming repeatedly on your vest, itching to just get on the road. Frank and Matt lingered with you before they joined the rest of their group.

The towering marine stepped up close to you and tightened the buckles of your bulletproof vest, wishing you would have accepted the offer of better gear from the Avengers but also knowing it was hypocritical of him when he declined as well.

It just wasn't your style.

It was his own damn fault for training you in his own combat style. He had no doubt of your capability, but still he worried about you. He always worried about you and he felt a sense of responsibility toward you after finding you tortured within an inch of your life.

"Stay close to Steve, sweetheart."

You snorted, but a glance back at Steve who was already looking at you with a raised eyebrow made you grumble and relent. "Fine."

"Good girl," Frank chuckled, before leaning in to press a firm kiss on your lips as he held you by the buckles of your vest. You smiled into the kiss, feeling the steady protection and reassurance that he always brings.

He stepped away for Matt to get his turn. This was a tradition that just developed naturally between the four of you. A kiss before danger. A promise to keep safe. A promise to come home.

Matt took your face in both hands and kissed the breath out of you as if he was trying to outdo Frank. It wasn't uncommon. He was always more aggressive with his affections, always as if he was scared you might suddenly slip away from his life and you were happy to reassure him every time that you weren't going anywhere. He chuckled when you bit his lip, beating him to it. He gave you one more peck before stepping aside.

Billy came closer to your side and slung his arm around your shoulders, chuckling as he nuzzled his nose against the side of your face. It was amusing him to no end at how easily you were folding for Steve. It was a nice change of pace from the three of them never being able to deny you anything.

Most especially Billy.

"We're definitely keeping Steve around. I think I like you compliant," he snickered, turning your head toward him with a finger under your chin. He planted a quick chaste peck on your lips. Your eyebrows quirked at the unusual behavior.

"What you're not gonna try to outdo me too?" Frank teased.

"Nem knows I do my best kissing elsewhere. Don't you, pretty girl?" Billy winked at you and you rolled your eyes. You smacked him in the chest but didn’t comment further. He wasn't wrong, but he was smug enough as it is.

You were about to turn toward the cars when you were knocked back slightly to the side by a sudden peck to your cheek. You couldn't stop the laugh when you caught Pietro's grin before he vanished again, a subtle warmth spreading in your chest. You were still smiling when you took your seat beside Steve who intertwined your hand with his and raised it to his lips, smiling that soft boyish smile against your skin that now made your stomach flip. He didn't let go of your hand throughout the ride, even as he caught Bucky's yearning gaze in the rearview mirror.

You were greeted by an ambush.

Somehow the syndicates knew that you would be coming, setting up a small army as your welcome party. A quick distress call through the comms from Frank confirmed that they were facing the same in their location.

But you couldn't focus on that.

You were too busy tearing through the goons that kept coming at you. Having two super soldiers and Sam in the thick of it with you was a blessing, but even with the other agents and Billy's sniper support you were severely overrun. You would just have to trust that the other team can handle their own.

You emptied the clips of your pistols as you trudged your way deeper into the fray, not bothering to duck or take cover from the onslaught of angry men. You tossed your empty guns to the side and drew out another, catching a few bullets in your vest.

No time to reload.

"I got you, Hedwig. Give 'em hell," Billy said in your ear.

The deadly smirk on your lips was the only warning the men in front of you got. You charged again as the adrenaline coursed through your body, bullets flying precisely into their skulls.

One. Two. Three. Four men down.

When your bullets ran out, you dropped the gun and pulled out two daggers. Your eyes narrowed as you took off into a sprint toward the closest target, weaving effortlessly through the oncoming fire.

A slice to the forearm to disarm.

A dagger up the chin.

Dead.

He dropped to the ground spluttering on his blood as you took the other dagger and sent it flying toward another's chest.

Dead.

Rough muscular arms caught you by surprise and gripped you from behind, caging you as you struggled. You saw the gun in his hand and reacted.

Break the wrist to disarm.

You smirked at the loud pop of his bones. You grabbed the gun before it dropped to the ground as you slipped a knife from your vest. The pain in his wrist caused him to loosen his hold on you, allowing you to turn to face him.

Blade to the gut.

Bullet to the face. Point blank.

Dead.

You didn't even flinch when his blood splattered across your face, joining the explosion of red already painting your figure. You could make out two more in your peripheral who dropped to the ground before they could advance on you, care of your guardian angel with a sniper rifle.

"Thank you, Blackbird," you said sweetly.

"Goddamn, doll," Bucky said, Steve stood beside him mirroring the same look of equal awe and fear.

This was the first time they had seen you in action. Hearsay and that little demo with Kim did nothing to prepare them for the sheer brutality you had when given the clear purpose to kill. You didn't hesitate. You didn't waste time. You didn't care that you were drenched in blood. You had a goal and you were going to meet it every time with ruthless violence.

This was who you were now.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Steve came up to you looking worried after seeing you charging headlong at open gunfire.

He didn't like it. At least he had a shield. Skilled as you were, he didn't like that you were running every mission like you had a death wish. There was so much blood on you that it was difficult for him to tell if any of it was yours.

"None of the blood is mine," you dismissed, wiping your face with what was the only clean part of your sleeve. "Let's go. I hear more up ahead and Sam said that's where the shipment is."

Rounding the corner, you were faced with another cluster of goons with weapons aimed at your small group. They stood a good distance away in front of two shipping containers that were being readied for transport. Sam landed beside you along with a group of agents. Bucky pushed you behind him and Steve raised his shield to cover you both. Billy chirped in the comms that the snipers had repositioned and were ready. All of that barely registered with you, white noise against the rage that was brewing, because behind enemy lines was the goal you've been chasing for a decade.

Salvacion.

"I have to say," he drawled. His voice, the first you're hearing of now, sending a chill down your spine. "I expected more from the Avengers. You didn't even bring Iron Man. I'm disappointed."

"Give up the serum," Steve growled.

"No. I don't think I will," he answered. "Kill them all."

All hell broke loose once more; fists, bullets, knives, and a shield flying in every direction. Bucky and Steve kept close to you, shielding you from most of the shots as you advanced. You gunned down every bastard you saw but your eyes never strayed from Salvacion who was just standing there watching the clash.

Taunting you.

Something nagged at the back of your head as you fought. It was unusual for the syndicates to be deploying this many people to a single location even if it was for the serum. While you were thanking every god you knew for luckily drawing Salvacion on this mission, his presence was also peculiar. Something else was going on.

Something else was here.

The syndicates were pushing back on your team hard, but you were making a dent in their numbers. When you saw Salvacion start walking away, that was when you felt the panic stir in your mind.

"I can't let him get away, Steve!"

You ignored his and Bucky's calls for you as you made a mad dash straight through the fight, efficiently shooting and stabbing anyone who dared get in your path. You were consumed with the purpose of reaching him, of finally being able to end it all.

You left the larger fight behind you in favor of this more personal one, the noise receding as you chased him farther. You caught a glimpse of him making his way up stacked containers and you sped up your run. You didn't even think twice about climbing the height. Nevermind potential broken bones. Nevermind getting cornered. Nevermind that you had no backup.

Salvacion would die today.

When you reached the top, you were surprised to see him standing there waiting for you but also that he wasn't alone. You raised your gun to match the one he was aiming at you, but he merely tutted and smirked. His other hand also had a gun, this one aimed up the chin of the person he was holding captive in front of him.

Kim.

The amount of irritation this woman was bringing into your life was starting to get on your nerves. She was delegated on your team for this mission and you stifled the aggravated groan as you noticed that she was bleeding heavily from both shoulders causing her to not be able to fight back.

Top agent my ass.

"Hello, Nemesis," Salvacion grinned at you. "Or should I call you Y/N? Much more personal given our history, don't you think?"

Your name on his lips caused a wave of nausea and a sneer to grace your lips. You raised your gun higher, narrowing your eyes as his own pressed harder against Kim's skin. It wasn't an idle threat.

"Nice of you to show up for once. Was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

"Come now. Don't you enjoy our little game of cat and mouse?"

A game.

This was all a game to him and the malevolent smile on his face confirmed that. The fury in you burned, almost making you physically shake. Killing Lily was nothing to him while it had completely consumed your life. It had become your driving force while to him you were merely entertainment.

"You're going to let me go," he declared, fully confident.

"Is that so?"

"Yes," he dragged out. "Or else your teammate here will die."

"What makes you think I give a shit?" you scoffed. "Go ahead."

The way Kim's eyes widened in terror brought a sick sense of pleasure in you that you shouldn't be proud of. Salvacion let out a low laugh, amusement clear in his tone.

"Oh, dear child. No matter how much spite you wrap yourself with, you are the same naive hero wannabe you always were," he snickered. "Self-sacrificing. Even at the expense of your sister."

"You don't talk about Lily, you bastard!" you screamed, your grip shaking slightly on your weapon.

All of a sudden it was hard to breathe and your heartbeat was hammering in your ears. You didn't expect that finally facing him, hearing him talk about Lily like she was inconsequential, would shake you to your core. This was what you have been waiting for. This was what you have been building up to for the past decade. This was your purpose for living.

What were you waiting for?

"I am feeling generous today. Consider it my gift to commemorate our first official meeting," he said.

"What the fuck are you on?" you growled.

"Open the containers," he smiled. "See you soon, Y/N."

He abruptly tossed Kim to the side, pushing her off the ledge of the containers you were on and bolted away with a mad cackle. You shot at his retreating figure, desperately trying to aim through the turbulent emotions he inspired in you. You were going to chase after him when a yelp of pain caught your attention.

Kim was hanging by one hand off the edge, obviously struggling to hold herself up with her busted shoulders. You were too high up for her to survive the fall and she was too injured to help herself. Her grip was slipping.

"Y/N! Help me please!"

A dark shadow passed through your features. Saving her would mean Salvacion would definitely escape. Again. You didn't know if you would ever get another chance at him or when that would be.

You didn't like this woman. You never did. She tormented your youth, took joy in it even and as you reunited nothing changed. She was the same egotistic bully she always was. This was a dangerous mission. People die in the line of fire.

It happens. No one would blame you.

"Please!"

"Fuck!"

You dropped your weapon and clasped both hands on hers to pull her up. You strained with the effort, Kim being a deadweight adding to the struggle. You let go when half her body was safely on top, her legs swinging up to roll herself flat onto the surface. She was crying and whimpering from the fear and pain. You couldn't help the anger that bubbled to the surface.

You slapped her face.

"Get your goddamn shit together," you roared at her. "I don't have time for this. Call for evac, princess."

You ran toward the sound of helicopter blades, jumping onto crates and jolting your bones at the impact. You didn't care. The renewed rage had steadied you, calmed you almost to the point that the only thing you could see in your mind was taking him out. You had faltered and you would beat yourself up about that later, but you couldn't let him slip away again.

The helicopter was already starting to take off, Salvacion clearly visible through the open door. You cocked your gun and fired away. Empty. You slipped another gun out and fired. Empty. You kept running toward him, drawing and firing every last bullet you had as you screamed your frustration with every shot that missed.

You noticed that you managed to get a few through him by the way his body jerked. You were feeling optimistic until he reached around and pulled out a rocket launcher. You saw the sinister grin before he fired.

"Nem!" You heard your name being called, but you were too stunned by the horrible realization that you had failed today. You watched the helicopter slowly make it's way farther and farther behind the rocket that was hurtling toward you.

Even if you ran, the area of impact would still tear right through you. You were frozen in place, unable to process that this was how it would end. That it would end in you dying by his hand as well. That it would end without you making it up to Lily.

Your internal struggle was interrupted by a large body completely engulfing yours. The impact of the rocket threw you both to the ground and the loud explosion accompanied by ripping metal deafened your ears.

You struggled with your vision, the ringing in your head was painful and your body sore from crashing down. Oddly, your skull itself didn't feel injured. All of the pain seemed to be concentrated on your torso. You blinked a few times to focus the blur of your eyes as the repeated chanting of your name became louder.

"Are you okay, doll? Answer me, Nem! Come on."

"Bucky?"

Your sight finally focused to find that it was the brunette super soldier on top of you, covering you from what would have certainly been your death. The dread on his face gave way to a tired relief at you finally responding.

He pressed his forehead to yours and closed his eyes, taking deep steadying breaths. You noticed now that he was wincing and that his flesh arm was underneath you, supporting your back and cradling your head. His metal arm was detached, a mangled mess of forcibly severed wires and metal plates sticking out from his shoulder. Your eyes widened in realization.

"Bucky, your arm," you started to struggle underneath him, knowing he must be in a world of pain.

He shushed you by rubbing the tip of his nose against yours. Your eyes met icy blue ones and you saw him smile weakly, as if telling you it was worth it. He wouldn't hesitate to catch a missile with his arm again if it meant protecting you.

The rest of the boys reached you shortly after, Sam took Bucky and informed you that evac and medics were here. You were still in shock from what just happened. Billy took you gingerly in his arms, endlessly fussing at you and apologizing for not being able to do more even if you understood it was impossible for him to have tracked you through the chaos. Steve stood to the side, obviously furious at himself for not going to you even if you understood it was only right that he led the main fight.

Your body felt like it had gone through a war and you were too emotionally distressed to address anything else. You felt defeated. You felt at a loss. You failed Lily again today. Suddenly, you remembered what he told you.

His gift.

"Steve, Salvacion told me to open the shipments. He said it was a gift from him."

You didn't wait for them to respond, dragging your battered body limping across the yard to the crates. Billy recovered first, quickly jogging up to support your battered body straight with his. Steve followed closely behind, the uneasiness clouding the three of you. The locks were easily broken by Steve's shield and soon your gift was revealed.

What you saw drained the blood from all of you and caused your skin to immediately chill. It was the most sickening thing any of you have ever seen in your lives and that was saying something. How anyone could do this was beyond comprehension.

People. Dozens of people.

Crammed inside the steel box were dozens of people in various states of distress. All of them had barely any life left in them, barely sustained by the various IV bags hooked on their bodies. They hardly reacted when the doors were opened, too spent by what they had been made to go through to even blink. You suspected that a good portion of those who were not moving at all were dead. The smell was horrendous and this was coming from people who were about to be shipped to god knows where.

The horror you felt heightened to epic levels when you noticed that some of the drip bags held a different colored fluid, the distinct color of the super soldier serum. Then it clicked and the nausea finally overcame you. You poured your guts out onto the pavement, your stomach heaving violently as the truth made your vision spin.

Human testing.

Human experimentation.

And you had let the bastard escape.

Steve was going to approach you, clueless as he was on how to help you at that moment, but you had scrambled out of reach and ran out of the shipment yard. He called after you readying himself to go to you, but Billy's grip on his forearm stilled him.

"We're not who she needs right now, Cap," Billy shook his head. "Right now these people need us more."

"Where's she going?" Steve asked, swallowing hard on the lump in his throat and reluctantly agreeing.

"She'll be fine. Matt will find her."

Matt found you hours later. He had returned badly beaten and bruised from their own mission, but upon receiving word from Billy he pushed aside every painful injury he felt and rushed to where he knew he would find you. His chest tightened when he was told what you had seen. It was bad enough that you were carrying the guilt of your sister's death, but now you had the weight of all the lives that were victimized by these sick people too. It was too much for one person to bear.

He found you in the confession booth of the church on the corner of a quiet street and he couldn't see the broken look on your face when he opened the door, but he could feel it. He heard it in your unusually slow heartbeat, as if your organs were trying to give up. He heard it in the shallow breaths you took, as if the act of living was a betrayal in itself. He heard it in the cry that was begging to break through you throat. He could almost taste your despair.

He slowly knelt in front of you and pulled you urgently into his arms, squeezing himself into the tight space. He held you against him, clutching you tight and rocking you gently back and forth. This was an open secret shared between the two of you. When the darkness was overwhelming, you turned to each other and confessed. He pulled away after a long moment, cradling your face firmly in his palms. His thumbs brushed against your dry cheeks. Of course you hadn't been crying.

There were no more left to shed.

"Talk to me," he muttered, pressing his lips softly against yours.

"He experimented on a lot of people," you muttered. "And I let him go, Matty. I've been letting him carry on for ten years."

Your tone was almost a hoarse whisper, devoid of much emotion apart from a cold defeat. This worried him, but at least you were talking. You had known when you were being tortured that they Hydra hadn't perfected the serum. They kept torturing you in the hopes that they could get you to reveal anything about the formula, Steve and Bucky's abilities, or where samples of their blood were stored. You didn't talk.

Maybe you should have talked.

When the syndicates got their hands on the incomplete formula, they were faced with the same problem. A problem they apparently decided to solve by trial and error on actual people. You knew this. At the back of your mind you knew this, but it didn't register until you saw it for yourself tonight. Somehow you had ignored that fact because you had only been focused on your own grief.

"I let him go. I did this, Matty," you breathed, the guilt clear in your voice.

"No! You did not let him go. The bastard got away," he insisted. "And this is not your fault. I won’t let you think that this is your fault."

"No," you argued weakly. "I let him go. I had a shot at stopping him tonight and I didn't take it."

"Steve told me. You stopped to save Kim." The movement of his thumbs on your cheeks changed to soothing circles. "You stopped to save a teammate. That was a good thing."

You scoffed. "I wanted her to die."

"What?"

"For a solid moment as she was hanging on for her life, I wanted to let her die."

"She's alive now because of you, Nem. You fought it. You're strong. You didn't give into it."

"But what if that's what I need to do? If I did I could have ended Salvacion tonight."

You could have ended it all tonight.

Salvacion's words tonight plagued you. if you didn't try to play the hero then this whole twisted operation could have been stopped. If you didn't try to play the hero then you would have gotten your revenge for Lily. If you didn't play the hero then Lily wouldn't even be dead. You had wanted to save people so much, make a difference in the world, that you didn't stop and think about how that would impact the people you held most dear.

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?" Matt asked cautiously, he knew more than anyone the struggle you faced. All of you were just a bad day away from completely snapping.

"I don't know," you admitted in defeat. You sounded so tired and confused that it broke his heart.

He held you for a moment more, waiting for your heart and breathing to return to normal. He didn't know what else to do or what else to tell you. He didn't know how to help you this time. Just then, he sensed the arrival of a Maximoff twin.

"Pietro's outside. I'll ask him to take you away for a while," he shook his head when he felt you were about to protest. "You need a break and you need some peace."

He led you outside, his pace slower than normal as your shoulders slumped lower to the ground in resignation. He exchanged a few words with Pietro before he pressed a kiss to your temple and pushed you toward the other man.

"Come with me, little star. I'll take care of you."

The next thing you knew, Pietro had lifted you into his arms and asked you to close your eyes. You buried your face into his neck as you felt the world around you dissolve in a blur, your hair whipped around but you weren't scared. The steady grip he had on you assured you that you would be safe. When he told you to open your eyes, you had no idea where you were or how long you had been traveling.

"Where are we?"

He gently set you on your feet as you looked around the area. It was beautiful. A dense lush forest that opened up to a lake with a small cabin. Isolated. Quiet.

Peaceful.

Immediately you felt your body relax in the new environment. It was so far removed from anything and everything that it allowed you to let go of the tight hold you had on your life. It allowed you to let go of the rage for a moment.

"Sokovia," he answered. "This is mine. When Wanda and I were little, even before the enhancements, our connection was strong and can be overwhelming. I needed a place that was only my own."

"Wanda doesn't know about this?"

"No, it is the only secret I have ever kept from her. I've never brought anyone else here."

Turning to him, you could see the shy smile on his face. There was a reluctance there, as if he was nervous that his little hideaway would not be good enough for you. You were quick to shoot that thought down.

"It's beautiful, Pietro. Thank you for sharing this with me."

His smile brightened as he approached you and held both your hands in his. "We can stay for as long as you want to. I can go into town and get us more supplies. We can swim in the lake if you like and I can cook you paprikash. You'll love it."

He was so excited. So happy to be able to spend time with you. Elated to be able to share this sentimental place with someone else, but he saw the sadness in your eyes and it made him force himself to slow down. The smile on his face dimmed.

"Do you want to go somewhere else? I can take you anywhere you like."

The heartbreak and disappointment in his voice alerted you. You hurriedly wound your arms around his shoulders and forced his eyes to meet yours. You recognized the way he looked at you, but it was only now that you really noticed that he has always looked at you that way. He was so pure. So honest. So good.

He was too good for you.

"No, Pietro. This is perfect. You're perfect." You tried to smile up at him. "I don't deserve you."

Just like that he understood you. He drew you closer by the waist and pressed a soft kiss at the corner of your mouth. When he drew back, his smile lit up his face again.

"Why do you need to deserve me, little star?" he chuckled at the puzzled look on your face, finding it adorable. "Can I not just choose to love you?"

You frowned and he just laughed more. He shushed your protests by pulling you flush against his body, lowering his head to hover his lips mere inches from yours. He left this small distance as your choice to make just as he has made his.

"Let me choose to love you."

You could feel his breath on your face at this distance, see the sparkle of anticipation in his eyes, and his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

You made your choice.

Kissing Pietro has to be the most comforting experience that you had ever felt. He tasted like hot chocolate on a rainy day and you felt your body melt when he returned the gesture. You were sighing against his lips when the now familiar feeling of him dashing turned it into a surprised squeal. You blinked and you were lying down on a soft mattress with Pietro grinning down at you.

You laughed as you shared more kisses, hands giddily exploring each other and tearing away pieces of clothing until nothing lay between you. For the first time in a long time, you felt insecure about your scars. For the first time, you were reluctant for someone to see them. Again, just like that he understood you.

"You're beautiful, little star. You have always been beautiful to me."

He kissed you again, deeply and full of emotion that you melted into the bed. His lips traveled down your neck, your chest, your stomach. He stopped to nip and suck at the inside of your thighs causing you to involuntarily moan his name. Lower he went until his mouth was working gentle swirls on your sensitive bud. Your hips grinded against his tongue, desperately seeking more.

He pressed his mouth fully on you then, adding a finger much to your delight. He ate you like he worshipped you. Like he was blessed with the opportunity to bring you pleasure. Your body sang his praises, reacting with equal enthusiasm by soon reaching your orgasm. You shook beneath him as he allowed you to ride out your high, soothing you with gentle hands rubbing circles on your hips. He was smirking at you when he crawled up, satisfied that he had made you cum but clearly aiming for more.

He kissed you again as he lined himself up against your core, sliding it against your slit to coat it with your slick. He wasn't even inside you yet and you already felt like you were ready to cum. He held your gaze, silently asking for permission that this was still what you wanted. Instead of answering, you moved your hips to slip his length inside causing him to drag out a hiss and capture your mouth again. The groan you both let out when he bottomed out vibrated through your fused lips.

"You feel incredible," he whispered. "You feel so good wrapped around me. Just like I always thought you would."

"Pietro, please."

His strokes were slow and deep, hitting that special spot inside you that had you panting with want. The smooth roll of his hips was quickly driving you higher and higher toward another orgasm. It was so gentle. So sensual. So personal.

"Tell me what you want, little star."

Everything about Pietro's life had been one big event after another. Rushed decisions. Angry fighting. Missions. Even his very enhancement relied on speed.

He didn't want that with you.

With you he wanted to slow everything down. He wanted to savor every moment. He wanted to stop time if he could, keep you in his arms for as long as possible. Freeze you in this exact moment when all you felt was pleasure.

"More," you pleaded.

Maybe he could speed up just a little bit.

His strokes gradually hastened and he glowed with satisfaction at seeing you delirious with desire because of him. He palmed at your breasts, nipped at your neck, and bucked his hips just a bit harder.

"More."

He smiled. How could he deny you? He lifted you up until you were seated on him, holding you firmly with an arm up your back with his hand fisting in your hair. The other hand he slipped between the two of you to rub against your clit. You saw the wicked glint in his eyes before he dipped his head to lave at your breasts.

You felt like you were going to explode from the different sensations. That was until he decided to move your body to bounce on his cock, his own hips thrusting up to meet you and his hand on your back guiding you to wind your hips as you came down. Your clit hit his pelvis each time and another wave was added onto your building climax. You whined, moaned, and pleaded his name. Begging him to grant you release.

“Let go for me. I have you. Let go.“

He growled against your breast and pounded up into you until you screamed and shook above him, clenching him so hard you pulled his own orgasm out of him. He spilled into you, crushing you against him as you continued to flutter around him.

You fought to catch your breath and when you caught each other's eyes, still hazy from lust, you laughed. You felt free. You felt renewed. You kissed him then.

"I love you too, Pietro."

He looked at you with unrestrained adoration. He had been chasing after you for so long that he could hardly believe that he had finally caught you. That he was finally yours.

"What? You didn't see that coming?" you teased.

He chuckled and pulled you in for another lingering kiss. You felt so good in his arms that he has completely forgotten how it felt to not have you in them.

"I meant what I said earlier," he murmured against the skin of your shoulder. "If you want to we can runaway. I can take you away from all of this. We can stay here or we can go anywhere else."

He smiled warmly at you and pecked your lips when he saw the internal conflict flash through your features. Again, without a word he understood you.

"But I know that is not what you want," he reassured you. "I just wanted you to know that you have that choice if you should want it."

Tempting as his offer was, you knew you couldn't let go of Lily's memory. You would never truly be at peace until Salvacion was rotting six feet under and his whole operation was blown to bits. You couldn't leave your mission unfinished. And you couldn't bear to leave four other men behind. Looking back at the events of the past night, it felt more accurate to say five. Still, there was a sense of security from knowing you had that option.

"Let's go home."

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

A/N: Okay let’s take a vote. Should we forgive Bucky now?

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

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aminiatureworld · 4 years ago

Text

A Sea of Fragments

Characters: Scaramouche, gn!reader

Word Count: 3,524

Warnings: Swearing, Fainting, Slight Violence

Premise: You just wanted to get away from a situation that was becoming untenable. Knowledge isn’t always a blessing, especially when it comes with the emotional toll of thousands of futures. Unfortunately however things don’t always go well, and soon you find yourself in a peculiar situation.

In which the reader is clairvoyant and Scaramouche takes an interest.

Author’s Note: Okay but I could write a whole series based off this premise. Ahh Scaramouche you petty drama king. Who is also a bit of an ass but oh well.

Scaramouche can be very entertaining to write but also very difficult. It’s tricky writing a romance with him that isn’t in some ways suspect, though I think that when you manage it he can be surprisingly soft. Really I think a lot of it depends on your interpretation of his character. I really like how this turned out though and I hope you enjoy!

You wanted to be helpful, you really did. Helping people, making your gift something more than an odd sort of burden, it gave you sense of purpose; but it was becoming too much. More and more you hardly knew yourself, whether you were living in your reality or in one which may yet come to pass. It was pressing down on you, causing you to spiral. You couldn’t do it anymore.

Stealing out of the village that had been your home since before you could remember, you couldn’t help but take a glance back. The picturesque houses that clumped together glowed warmly, shadows of people visible in the windows. You wished you could help, you really did. But the burden had become too much, and now it was time to go. Taking a deep breath you turned back towards the road. In a few steps you’d finally be free. And if it was a bittersweet kind of freedom, so be it.

_______

“I hardly expected to be dragged out here to listen to the fantastical rumors of a group of farmers.” Scaramouche raised an eyebrow. The Fatui Agent facing him shifted slightly, seemingly uncomfortable with the Harbinger’s scrutiny. Good. He deserved it.

“I understand the sentiment, but this is hardly an ordinary rumor –”

“Then what is it?” Scaramouche’s acerbic tone cut off the man, making it clear that he wasn’t going to be fooled into complacency. What nonsense people believed. That some of those people were members of the Tsaritsa’s elite army only made it more infuriating. Still, what could you expect of ordinary people? How easily they believed their own lies.

“At first we thought nothing about the rumor as well,” the mage who’d been silent for the duration of the conversation spoke up, “we were just planning on leaving it alone. But then the famed fortune teller vanished. They disappeared, despite no one doubting their claims. Rumor is that the whole thing was making them ill.”

“And now I’m to look into this because our little psychic got tired and ran away?” Scaramouche let out a dramatic sigh, pausing just long enough to see the underlings in front of him squirm. Finally, he shook his head. “Ah the things Signora asks me to do.” Standing up from the chair he was sitting in he turned his back on the messengers. “You’re dismissed. Don’t bother me with this again.” There was some shuffling as the Fatui bowed and left. Scaramouche always loved listening to the way people scuttled away after talking to him. No one had any backbone, they all cowered and slunk away, as if that would make him forget them. Well he never would.

Alone he couldn’t help but scoff once more at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Honestly he expected more of Signora – who could usually be relied upon to possess a little more common sense than the rabble around them. Who would’ve thought her weakness was something as simple as someone pretending to see the future? Really it was quite sad.

“Let’s see what comes out of this little treasure hunt,” Scaramouche mused to himself, grabbing the pack he’d already made up once he’d first heard the rumors swirling around the camp, “they should hope it’s worth my time.”

_______

The village was terribly dinky, as one would expect of a community that was barely above the status of farming commune. Scaramouche wrinkled his nose, overwhelmed by irritating sounds, smells, and sights. How people could live in such a state? It was pitiful, how low humans could sink. Stepping around a cart laden with cabbages Scaramouche ducked inside the leaning structure that comprised the village center. Hopefully he wouldn’t be here long.

Awaiting him was the leader of the village. Her skin was cracked and tanned from the sun, and one couldn’t tell whether her wrinkles were a sign of old age or of the hardship of living a life devoid of luxury. One could almost feel pity for her, Scaramouche thought. Sitting down on the cushion across from her he gestured for her to talk. Hopefully this would be over soon.

“It was six nights ago that they left.” The woman’s voice trembled slightly, there were tears staining the corner of her eyes. “I don’t know why, we never made them unwelcome. They were simply there one day gone the next.”

“Did anyone see them?” Scaramouche attempted to hide his yawn. Usually he kept the tedious work in the lower ranks where it belonged. Still, this was turning into quite an outlandish story the more he heard about it. Apparently you really weren’t some ordinary charlatan, at least not to those around you; some even called you the reincarnation of a powerful spirit or a god. Of course all that might’ve been par for the course, but you refusing all money and gifts was certainly not. What kind of act were you peddling, the Harbinger wondered. Certainly not a very smart one.

“No,” the woman shook her head mournfully, “they lived alone, and often would be out at odd hours of the day, supposedly going to somewhere with less noise and purer air. We all suspected they really just wanted to be left alone. It seemed to annoy them when we asked too much, they often got headaches from it apparently. Once we even had to call in a doctor from the city, after they collapsed mid-vision.”

“I see.” Scaramouche didn’t bother to keep the scowl off his face. What was going on? There was an odd conventionality to this story, and if it weren’t for your roots here and your odd independence he’d certainly be dismissive. And yet…

As if mirroring this thought he raised his hand, standing up and walking towards the door. “Thank you for the information, I’ll be sure to tell you if I find them.”

“Don’t hurt them!” The woman shrank a bit as Scaramouche turned back to her, and he could see her hand trembling slightly as she set it back down.

“Why would you say that?” He said, voice dripping with false sweetness. “Why I wouldn’t dream of doing anything but bringing them home, safe and sound.” He didn’t bother adding anything else, both of them knew it was a lie. For what member of the Fatui does something with expecting anything in return?

Exiting the cramped structure Scaramouche immediately made for the path that led away from the village, out towards the vast wilderness of which folk tales were comprised of. You hadn’t gone far, that he could be relatively sure of. Someone disappearing suddenly like that, taking nothing but a sack full of food and a few weapons? They wouldn’t make it more than a few miles before stopping. Especially since the night watch had confirmed no one had left in the direction of the city. Luckily the Harbinger was more prepared.

_______

The sun had set long ago, and now Scaramouche watched as the moonlight danced upon the only lake in the area. He knew that his best bet was here.

The area was surprisingly beautiful, so much so that even Scaramouche could find some worth in it. The villagers had called it a valley, but really it was more of a canyon, most likely carved out from a glacier, back when gods walked the earth and humans still cowered in their caves. The grass around the lake was so green it seemed surreal, as if it were painted onto the earth, and an cattails and various grasses dotted the edge of the water. A miniature sort of lagoon lay to the north, the dense, low hanging trees obscuring it partially from view. Ethereal was the only way to describe it, anything more would’ve been pretentious and anything less would’ve been somewhat lacking.

The view was so mesmerizing that at first Scaramouche barely registered the shadow dotting the field. Quickly however he regained his senses. The figure was moving quickly, not erratic enough to be without a purpose, not staid enough to be dismissed as a cloud or a piece of flora. No, it was definitely a human, and definitely one who didn’t want to be seen. Smiling to himself Scaramouche leapt into the air. This was going to be at least somewhat interesting.

The figure jumped as soon as he hit the ground. Whirling around Scaramouche knew instantly it was you, the mysterious mystic he’d been looking for. Although, looking at your appearance it seemed more likely for you to be an invalid looking for someone with power, rather than being the source of said magic. The pallor of your skin was ghastly, and though you furrowed your brow and reached for your weapon your eyes were slightly glazed, your movements heavy and unsure.

“Well, what have we here?” Scaramouche smiled as you shrank back for a second. Despite his stature, he knew how to command a room, or a valley, when he needed to. You shook off his theatrics quickly enough though, scowling in response to his declaration.

“If you want me to do something for you, I’m afraid I’m fresh out of visions.”

“Oh? That’s not what I’ve heard. From what I know it seems like your talents never fail you. Unless, of course, you’ve given up on your scheme.” Instead of shock painting your face however you simply raised your hand to your face. Wobbling slightly on your feet you shook your head violently.

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m not doing business, not before, not now, not ever. So if you could please leave me alone…” your voice faded. By now Scaramouche was sure something was wrong.

“What? Did you manage to get bit by something during your three day wildlife trip?” He sneered. You didn’t seem to hear him however. Staring him straight in the face the expression you wore could almost be described as a smirk.

“I’m going to faint now.” You deadpanned, before your knees buckled and you hit the ground so hard Scaramouche was sure that it was going to leave a bruise.

_______

Unfortunately the oppressive haze of passing out is much more difficult to handle when one is left stranded with an obnoxious stranger in the woods, a stranger who evidently has no intention of helping you. By the time you’d become properly aware of your surroundings they’d become so foreign as to be barely distinguishable from when you were fading in and out of consciousness.

You knew that you were in a tent, one so grand as to basically be a structure on its own. This, along with the cacophony outside, led you to the conclusion that whoever had picked you up – and you still weren’t sure who that odd purple haired man was, though asshole certainly seemed an apt term – they weren’t working alone. A peek outside proved you right, and to your horror you realized very quickly that not only were they not working alone, but that they were with, if not part of, one of the most despicable groups to ever walk Teyvat.

The hours passed, and the light from outside had significantly faded by the time the man came back, this time wearing something much flashier than before. The hat gave you all the information you needed.

“Harbinger.” You spat, glaring as hard as you could. For his part the man said nothing, only making the ghost of a bow, a smirk on lips.

“Feeling better are we? Really for someone supposedly blessed by the gods you have terrible stamina.”

“Try living through hundreds of fragments of fate and come back to me.” You shot back. Although you’d heard frightening stories of the Fatui, and especially of those who led them, you found irritation to be your main emotion. Apparently even fear can be bypassed if one is disgruntled enough. “What do you want anyways?”

“To see if you’re worth the reputation you’ve earned.” The man sat down on a chair so ornate it was almost comical. He stared right back at you, and if you hadn’t felt so drained you might’ve been uncomfortable. Still, you stood your ground.

“I’ve no interest in showing anything to the Fatui.” You kept your voice matter-of-fact. He was like all those other clients that ran to the village, only more vain and perhaps better with a weapon. Otherwise, well wasn’t he nothing at all?

“I’m not interested in your personal opinions. I have a duty to the Tsaritsa to make manifest her wishes through any means possible, and that might be quite a bit easier with one who can see the future.”

“I see many futures, not just the one that will pass. Besides, even if I could tell you exactly what will happen, I wouldn’t.”

“I could make you.” The man sneered, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Frustration welled up inside you as you stood your ground. You wouldn’t lose.

“No, you can’t.”

“Why not? Plan on fighting me?”

“I could just wait until you left for your Harbinger duties.”

“I’d tie you up.”

“I’d escape.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“This conversation is getting nowhere.” The Harbinger leaned back in his chair, sighing in what appeared to be mock annoyance. You smiled, despite yourself.

“I very much agree. So, how about you let me go and I in turn pretend that you never neglected to give me emergency medical attention.”

“Who’re you going to complain to?” The man snorted. You just shook your head, smiling morphing into a smirk.

“Who says I’m going to complain? I could just burn down your tent instead.”

“Ah yes, I forgot you’re a vision user, in both senses of the word.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” You wrinkled your nose. “If so it wasn’t very funny.”

“I think what’s not very funny is the way this conversation is going.” The man leaned forward once more. “For all your talk, I doubt you could do half of what you threatened, considering you could barely survive on your own for three days.”

“And I think you’re underestimating me.” You replied, continuing to smile as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. “It seems we’ve reached an impasse.”

There was a pause, and as the Harbinger’s face grew cold you wondered if he might storm out. You hoped he would. You wanted to be left alone, to think, to process, perhaps even to look into the future. Not that you tended to look into your own. Divining one’s own path was notoriously taxing, and often it was nearly impossible to wade through the fog of diverging paths.

“Look into my future.” The words took you out of your reverie and you shot a confused look at the person sitting across from you. Seeing the look of suspicion on your face he laughed, and though the laugh was sharp and slightly ugly, it seemed somehow more genuine than the theatrical tone which he’d been employing beforehand. “Look into my future,” he repeated, “and if you see a fragment which is to your liking, then work for me.”

“I don’t work for the Fatui.”

“And I don’t lose an opportunity. Besides,” he raised an eyebrow, “I specified you’d work for me. There’s a difference.”

“Hardly.” You replied, but nevertheless you closed your eyes.

The feeling of falling enveloped you, and when you opened your eyes you weren’t in a tent but rather surrounded by fragments of glass. Each reflected a piece of the future, and as you reached out to look at them you found yourself almost overwhelmed by the emotions they carried.

The first path of the future was one of death. There he stood, bathed in blood, purple eyes glowing with magic, a sadistic smile plastered upon his face. Around him lay the mangled bodies of those you knew he had slaughtered. Sometimes they were warriors, sometimes they seemed to be the most ordinary sort of people. There was a pressure in your ears and for a moment you couldn’t breathe. These futures were dead ones, and their rot now seeped into your skin, filling your throat.

The second path was different, although one would be hard pressed to call them pleasant. In those he was the one who had fallen, eyes which had once been bright now dulled by the shadow of death. A maniacal laughter filled the air in one fragment, a triumphant cry of having murdered a monster; in another fragment there was weeping, and though you couldn’t place who it was the voice sound distinctly familiar. In those fragments you felt an emptiness, and though you knew the tears sliding down your cheeks were par for the course, you were still ashamed by them.

The third path was oddly detached from the rest. You could still feel the crackle of darkness in the air, one who had become a Harbinger would never be able to escape such a thing. But there was something else too. There he stood, staring off into the distance, expression opaque, eyes seeing not the landscape around him but something inside himself. There was the familiar muffled tones of someone speaking – you could never truly hear what anyone said – and he turned around. The ghost of a smile passed his face and he stepped towards whoever was calling him. You focused on one specifically, that in which he seemed happiest. The feeling of contentment, of happiness, enveloped you, mixing with shame when you found yourself staring back at you. Shock running through your system the fragments shook around you, shattering like glass at your feet as you fell back to the present.

“That seemed like quite the experience.”

There was amusement in the Harbinger’s voice, but you found yourself unable to answer him. Breathing heavily you tried to wrap your head around what you’d just envisioned. What in the name of the gods was that? Never before had you doubted your abilities, but now you prayed that you were wrong, prayed to anyone who could hear that you were mistaken. The residual feelings of the shard you’d just witnessed lingered, deepening your sense of unease, of shame. Happiness, how could you feel happiness? This man was a Harbinger, a menace to Teyvat, and you might… you couldn’t even finish the thought.

Wrenching your eyes shut you took a few deep breaths. Leave, you should just leave. Refuse his offer, what could he do? But now you couldn’t unsee the future, couldn’t erase the image from your mind. And though you scoffed at it, deep down inside of you something wished to reach out to that bit of the future once more, to ensure its survival. Exactly why, you couldn’t tell. You could tell yourself it was the horror of the rest of the fragments, but even that wouldn’t be quite accurate. This was the issue with looking into the future. It always ended up affecting the past. Wasn’t this one of the reasons why you’d wanted to leave? Now you’d carry the burden of knowledge with you forever, this one more painful than most.

“Are you going to faint again?” The words were rough but the tone was less so. Opening your eyes you stared into the man’s eyes. Was this what would set you on that path? It seemed so surreal. And yet you knew that it might still come to pass.

“No.” The word came out softer than you’d hoped. “I’m alright.”

He said nothing for a moment, while you in turn calmed yourself down. Finally though he grew impatient. Leaning his head on his hand he spoke once more.

“So, will you work for me?” You glared at him but said nothing. How could you answer it now. You couldn’t tell him what you’d just witnessed, it seemed taboo. Still, the situation had changed. Even if he didn’t know it, it had changed very much.

“Fine.” Your words surprised you, but only for a moment. You’d known, you’d known the moment you’d look into that sea of futures and felt that sense of happiness. It was too late. You’d folded. He’d won.

“Good.” At first the Harbinger stayed still, but soon enough he was standing up, moving towards the entrance of the tent. “I’ll get you what you need. Like I said you’ll be working for me, not for the Fatui, so we can work out the details of your contract ourselves.”

“Whatever you say…”

“Scaramouche.”

“Scaramouche.” You finished. Scaramouche smiled, and in it you saw a ghost of the future.

“And your name?”

“You’ll have to wait to get that answer.” You replied, feeling somewhat contrary.

“As you wish. Well then, mysterious clairvoyant, I look forward to our work together.” Scaramouche replied once more before stepping outside. You sighed, feeling the exhaustion of everything that had just passed. s

You’d taken a gamble with fate, for the future was still uncertain, and the days leading up to it were sure to be full of pitfalls. Still you were resilient. You’d make that future happen. No matter what.

And, if worst came to worst, you wouldn’t be the one crying when the world fell apart.

#genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #requested #oneshot #my writing

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6sakusa · 4 years ago

Text

‘play’ suna rintarō.

warnings: angsty af lol sorry, implications of a toxic relationship, smoking, mild swearing.

“i just want you to understand how i feel.” you huffed, doing your honest best to hold back your screams and shouts. you and suna had been in his car for hours, him quietly listening to you complain about how he’d been neglecting you without much care, with one blunt in his hand and the other on the steering wheel. you pleading for him to hear you out and change his ways even though you knew it was a long shot and that he was barely listening from his lack of reactions.

“suna.” you raised your voice this time, breaking whatever trance he’d seem to be as he deterred his stare from up ahead turning to you at the use of his last name. “suna?” he spat, his expression growing dark repeating your words back to you with a scoff. “have you even been listening to what i’m saying?” you sighed, burying your head in your hands as the lowly vibration of his moving car rang throughout your body.

“you were saying i don’t treat you well enough or some shit, am i right?” he bore his usual deadpanned expression with a lazy tone as if he couldn’t even be bothered to give a fuck about how you felt. the vehicle became engulfed in silence as he took another hit of his blunt waiting on your response.

“you don’t seem to care much.. as usual.” your voice trailed off towards the end, your eyes wandered to the window, taking in the view of the moving scenery before you. “what’s that supposed to mean, princess?” he chuckled , emphasising the last word in a mockish tone highlighting just how entitled he truly thought you were acting.

“it means i want to spend more time with you, and not when you’re like this.” you gestured towards the blunt in his hand, anger beginning to bubble up in your abdomen as you realised you had to ask your own boyfriend to want to spend time with you. “you’re with me right now no?” he took one more hit before rolling down the window and chucking out the blunt before turning back to face you. “see, and now that’s gone, this is what you want right?” he gripped the steering wheel just a fraction harder than before.

“yeah but i want something more, like a real date.” you sighed in both appreciation and exasperation, watching how the two of you were beginning to drive out of the city behind you and onto the motorway at 2am in the dead of the night. “God you’re so high maintenance, you know that angel?” he smirked, smoothing over his words with pet names. you scoffed leaning back into the passenger seat not letting the implicated insult fly over your head.

“well, if you really want to go on a date let’s go somewhere right now.” he smiled lazily and suddenly butterflies arose in your stomach which was a feeling that had been absent for the longest time. “really rin?” you leaned over hugging his abdomen as he raked his hands through your hair, the sensation had always calmed you. “yeah, if that’s what you want.” he chuckled, retracting his seat slightly before lightly pushing you back to your own.

“so where are we going?” your excitement was practically pouring out and you had stars in your eyes as you watched your boyfriends features slightly contourt as he contemplated. “you’ll see.” he shot you a devilish smirk before turning back to the steering wheel, retracting his seat further. you raised an eyebrow but disregarded his statement as a surprise.

closing your eyes you smiled into the passenger seat, humming in content as you were finally getting what you wanted. “is your seatbelt on?” suna’s voice broke through the silence but he didn’t bother to spare you a glance to actually check. “yeah?” you responded in a puzzled tone before the car began speeding up immensely. “rin what are you doing?” you gripped the seat below you.

he didn’t bother responding and instead flashes you an unrecognisable look before chuckling, applying slightly more pressure to the peddle below him making the two of you go even faster. “you’re approaching the speed limit too fast, slow down.” you scoffed expecting him his actions to align with your orders but alas you were wrong, horribly and miserably wrong.

instead, he pressed down even harder, glancing at you to capture your reaction as you watched him wide eyed and you could swear he was enjoying it. “you’re approaching 70.” your eyes flicked to the monitor and back to his face continuously in the hopes of him choosing the slow down but he hardly seemed to care, biting back a laugh he slid his hand to the edge of your seat, reclining it just like his.

“what the fuck are you doing.” you swatted his hand away as you watched the car surpass the speed limit. you couldn’t fully see what was going on ahead anymore as your eyeline was met with the dashboard. “put my seat back up.” you shot him a venomous glare and even he could tell that you weren’t playing anymore, yet he still didn’t reply.

your breath began to hitch as he approached 120, a lump forming in your throat gripping the door handle besides you. “stop the fucking car.” you were raising your voice now, you weren’t in control of your the way you were reacting, it all seemed so involuntary, like your body had gone into autopilot as you faced a situation that you were completely helpless in. you were panicking, big time.

you resisted the force pushing you backwards leaning over to shake your boyfriend into listening to your pleas as he approached 200 on the motorway, miles above the speed limit. “suna stop, please.” tears had began to form, glazing over your eyes. ‘we’re going to die’ you thought to yourself biting your bottom lip harsh enough to draw blood while you pleaded with your boyfriend to stop with no avail.

before you knew it your own words we’re being drowned out, what were you even saying again? it was all a blur as different memories began to bombard your thoughts, equally happy and tragic. ah, it made sense now.. your life was flashing before your eyes and you were just realising it as you sat motionless in the passenger seat, tears finding their way into your lap in a pathetic silence.

at the absence of your pestering suna looked over to see you in an almost catatonic state, everything about you was utterly lifeless and if it wasn’t for your visible crying he would swear that you were dead. “y/n?” he asked slowing down the car to 40 in mere seconds. “y/n i was just kidding.” he moved to shake you to reality. “hey y/n.” he waved a hand in front of your face, eyes flickering between you and the road up ahead.

“stop the car.” you said in a croaked whisper, as if speaking up just the slighest bit would utterly break you. for the first time in your entire life you could say that you were scared, completely scared of suna rintarō. the car came to a halt, but not without hesitation from your boyfriend.

you leaned towards the door without a word, opening it as you tumbled out, barely able to gain your footing. “y/n chill, i was just playing around.” he moved to grab your hand but you pulled it out of his grasp as you stumbled onto the sidewalk. you had no idea where you were apart from that you were not in your city and you also had no idea where you were going. regardless, you turnt backwards and began walking.

“no, i don’t think i want to play anymore.”

you can read more of my suna work here:

8 hours

the man you’d marry

#haikyuu #anime #suna rintaro x reader #hq suna #suna x reader #suna rintaro scenarios #suna rintarō #suna x you #angst #suna angst #haikyuu angst #suna rintaro imagine #suna rintarou #inarizaki #haikyuu suna #haikyuu season 4 #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!

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kimberly-spirits13 · 4 years ago

Text

Lonely Gun

Pairing: Jamie Reyes x reader

Synopsis: You love going on bike rides during free times around the neighborhood, however this time, your crush joins you.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1262

You were in your bedroom getting changed at the cave into some clothes to go biking. It was early evening and the perfect weather for a ride. You put on some sports leggings with pockets for your phone and pocket knife, a short -sleeved gym shirt, and your running shoes. Your hair was half up and half down and had an almost crimped look from leaving in braids over-night.

“You almost ready Y/N?” Someone asked knocking on your bedroom door.

“Yeah, one second!” You replied almost tripping from getting your shoes on before opening your bedroom door to reveal Jamie who was waiting outside for you to finish changing.

“I have this route that no one takes. It has a few people every now and then, but it’s rarely busy if you’d like to go on that one. Otherwise there’s the city bike routes or bikes on the beach.” You informed him walking to the exit of the cave.

“Let’s venture off the norm.” He laughed some making you smile.

“Jamie Reyes, now is the optimal time to confess your feelings.” The scarab popped in making Jamie roll his eyes.

He ignored it for a second before telling it to shut up when you were out of earshot getting the bikes. You rolled yours out followed by Jamie as the doors of the cave opened.

“Just remember, this is a hillier route, if you can’t keep up, I can slow down.” You smirked looking at him.

“The Y/N is challenging you, I recommend taking them out now so they pose no threat.” The scarab hissed.

“The scarab doesn’t like that Y/N/N.” Jamie said shooting a look at the Scarab.

“Oops, sorry if I offended it.” You giggled peddling off.

You and Jamie biked off into a mostly silent neighborhood in the suburbs near the cave. It was a lovely place, often housing families and in the back, an assisted living section atop the large hill. There were flower bushes in almost every yard and when you got to the top of the hill, there was a group of kids playing in the sprinklers and on a massive waterslide that was stretching into multiple yards.

Jamie smiled at you waving at one of the kids that called out your name smiling and jumping around.

“Who was that?” He asked.

“One of the kids that I babysit, her name is Lilly.” You smiled turning into the back of the neighborhood and down a smaller hill.

You guys stopped at stop signs and then started back again, taking a sharp left turn down another winding road all down a massive hill. You didn’t notice him looking at you, admiring how your hair whipped in the wind and how you smiled every time you picked up the speed. You guys stopped once more at the stop sign and then went down an empty road.

“This might look like there’s nothing here, but trust me, the best part of the route is down this road.” You said shooting him a small glance before he nodded an okay at you.

You would normally be a lot more cautious going down an empty street like this. There were no houses and typically, no cars down this street either. If anything happened, you’d be able to handle yourself with training from various heroes, you just didn’t want to. Jamie gave you a strange look when you turned off onto another, much smaller road that could not be seen.

After heading down further, you guys passed a stream on an older looking bridge and then came to a meadow at the edge of a lake. You hopped off your bike and set it down at the edge of the road. No one came down back here, so you knew that it would be fine. Jamie did the same thing too and followed you to a large oak tree where you climbed to one of the lower larger branches and sat.

“Want any help up Reyes?” You asked smirking some.

“Not at all L/N.” He replied climbing to sit next to you, “This place is really beautiful.”

“I know right. I come here almost every day when I just need some down time. I like being alone for a little bit. Even if it’s just outside, riding my bike around for a little bit. Helps me clear my mind and all.” You chuckled looking down at the lake below.

“So, this is where you almost always run off to after missions?” Jamie asked sitting back some on the tree.

“Almost always.” You answered sighing, “Sometimes I can stay here for hours. And then I remember I have to be at the cave but still.”

He smiled some at your comment before everything went back to being silent.

“Jamie Reyes, this is the perfect time to confess your feelings.” The Scarab butted in.

Jamie tried to ignore it but the Scarab persisted more and more.

“Want to walk around some?” You finally asked.

“Uh sure.”

You jumped down from the tree making a perfect landing and started to walk away some, quickly followed by Jamie.

“You know, I never really would have expected this kind of place from you.” He stated as you walked around the edge of the lake.

“And whatever would that mean Reyes?” You questioned arching a brow.

“O-oh nothing bad!” He said blushing some, “I’m just saying I wasn’t expecting a meadow, oak tree, and really pretty lake like this. Fairy tale kind of place.”

“Yeah, well I do like to surprise.” You laughed, “It’s always just been something I always did. I’ve been kind of a lonely gun my entire life and just did whatever I thought was the most interesting.”

“So, you’ve never considered any relationships?” He asked rubbing the back of his neck after realizing how that might have come across.

“I mean I’ve thought about it before, I just haven’t met anyone who can pull the trigger.” You blushed some, “Well, I think I did. Maybe.”

“O-oh.” He sighed some looking and sounding disappointed.

“Jamie are you alright?” You asked in a concerned tone.

“Y-yeah I’m fine.” He said.

“Really? Because I’ve met a lot of people in my life and you fit the “I have something I’m not talking about” look on your face. A classic one really.”

“I’m fine it’s just. W-well I was hoping you weren’t dating anyone or anything.”

“Well, I’m not dating anyone right now so spill.” You realized what was happening.

“Y/N, I-I really like you but if you’re already interested in someone, I’m sure that they’re great and you deserve the best of anything. If you regret taking me here, I get it.” He said turning all sorts of shades red now.

“Jamie.” You said giggled some, your tone changing into an understanding one, “I was talking about you stupid.”

“W-wait really?” He asked in surprise.

“Duh, why else would I have taken you out here?”

“I mean that makes sense I just didn’t think...” He suddenly pulled you into a kiss making you freeze before you returned the action.

“Well, I guess this means we’re a thing now?” You asked breathlessly after you two pulled away.

“I guess. If that’s what you want?” He answered.

“Of -course it is.” “Now, I hate to ruin this moment, however there’s a massive hill and the rest of the neighborhood to cover.” You said smirking, “You know, if you’re up for it.”

“Wow, way to make a guy feel wanted.” He laughed heading back with you, “I’m up for it.”

I hope you guys are having a great day and weekend. I go on bike rides a LOT as you guys might have deduced by now and I got this idea over the past few weeks. I listen to a ton of music on these rides and always imagine a story in the background of it. Idk it’s just how my brain works lol. Anyways, I hope you guys are all staying safe and healthy and continue to have a great week!

#dc comics #dc x reader #dc characters #young justice x reader #young justice #jamie reyes #jamie reyes x reader #Jamie reyes x y/n #jamie reyes imagine #blue beetle #blue beetle x reader #blue beetle imagine

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shakespeareanwannabe · 4 years ago

Text

Protective Instincts

Santiago Pope Garcia x F!OC

Summary: After everything he’s done, Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia can’t fathom the idea of bringing a child into the world. But sometimes, life doesn’t work out exactly as you’ve planned. *Based off of some wonderful headcanons written by @darksideofclarke*

Warnings: Pregnancy fic (so if you’re not into that, please don’t read), swearing, reference to smut (but it’s only like one line), references to blood, death (of adults and children), and PTSD

A/N: Hi everyone! So this is my first fanfic post on Tumblr (I have an active account on ff.net, and if anyone is interested in reading that, I can send you my account name). I really enjoyed writing for Pope, it was really nice to spread my wings outside of the Supernatural fandom, so please let me know if you enjoyed this, because I’ve got so many ideas for how to turn it into a series. Hope you enjoy! And let me know if you want to be tagged in any future chapters that come out.

15 steps to the left.

Stop.

Turn.

15 steps to the left.

Stop.

Turn.

Repeat until the worries of the mind and the heaviness of the heart disappears.

“Hey, baby, I’m home!” Pope’s voice calls out, causing Rebecca’s steady steps to stumble.

“How can I face him? How can I tell him?” her mind anguished.

She found herself stopped in front of their large bay window, staring out into the street as her wonderful, loving boyfriend walked up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, not noticing how she flinched as he hands come to rest on top of her still soft stomach and planted a gentle kiss on her neck.

“How was your day?” he questioned, seemingly content with the picture of domestic bliss that they undoubtedly made, as he nuzzled his nose in between her shoulder blades.

“It was fine,” she murmured quietly, folding her arms around her chest.

Pope shifted, his nose gently brushing her ear as he twisted to look at her profile.

“What happened?”

What had happened? How could she answer that when every molecule in her body was seemingly at war with each other? When her heart was rejoicing but the tiniest voice in the back of her mind was throwing up red flags because they had never talked about this before and she had no clue how he was going to react? When every instinct inside of her was screaming ‘protect’ and every emotion was yelling ‘share’?

“I…I think we should sit.”

Pope felt his heart stutter but nodded as he gently led her to the couch. Was this the moment he had been dreading? Was this when karma kicked in and took away the best thing that had ever happened to him?

“Bex, please…” he kept his hand on her thigh as they settled next to each other on the leather couch. “Are you okay?” Hesitantly, she nodded, and Pope sighed with relief. “What’s going on, baby?”

She shifted slightly, pulling away from his hand and playing with her fingers in her lap. “Umm…you know how I haven’t been feeling great the past week or so?”

He nodded, leaning forward. “Yeah, did you go to the doctor today like I asked?”

He had had to beg her to go. She had insisted that it was just the flu, probably coupled with her oncoming period in the next couple of days. She usually felt like shit when that time of the month rolled around, but the constant vomiting had been new, so he had pleaded with her daily for the last four days to go to the doctor. In hindsight, she had been resistant because she had a sneaking suspicion, but, again, her instincts had been at war with each other.

“Yeah, I went…” It wasn’t until her breathing hitched and Santiago lifted his hand to brush away a tear that she even realized she was crying.

“Baby…” Rebecca looked up and met Santi’s dark eyes. She could read the fear reflected in them and it only made her feel worse. Her sweet, burdened man had fought a war, lost friends, and here she was, scaring him in the comfort of his own home.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted, wanting to see that worry washed away from his expression.

Instead, she saw the walls slam up in his eyes.

*******************************************************************************************

Pope had the unfortunate experience of being too close to an explosive as it detonated. He’d felt the shrapnel dig itself into his body, felt the heat burn his skin, but, for Pope, the worst part was the ringing in his ears. When the dull sound of tinnitus overtook everything. He’d had men, friends, best friends, screaming in his face but had been unable to hear them. The roar of the fire and the scream of bullets flying sounded like he was hearing them from deep underwater, Catfish could be hollering in his ear that they had to move, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“I’m pregnant…” Rebecca blurted, hesitantly glancing back and forth between his face and her lap.

Now, he was sure that she kept talking. Hell, he could see her lips moving. But the words…they weren’t reaching him. Everything was white noise, he was moving through water, the scar on the back of his neck started to burn.

One thing the military had taught Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia was how to listen to his instincts. He was a damn good leader, he had a loyal crew of men who depended on him and had his back, and that was partially because his instincts were usually pretty spot on. If that feeling in his gut told him to stop, they stopped. If it told him to run, he was dragging his team alongside him at a dead sprint. If it told him to shoot, he shot.

Now, his fight or flight was telling him one thing.

Pope rose from the couch, his eyes just skating past Rebecca’s panicked expression, his brain not really absorbing any new information, like how her lips were moving in a repetitive pattern.

“Santi…Pope…Santiago…Please…Santi…Pope…Santiago…Please…”

His ears were ringing, but his eyes knew her lips well enough to understand, even if that information wasn’t making it to his brain.

Wordlessly, emotionlessly, almost lifelessly, Pope paced to the front door, shrugged on his leather jacket, donned his sunglasses, pulled his keys out of his pocket.

Open the door. One step over the doorframe.

Turn.

Close the door. Lock it.

Five stairs. Fifteen paces.

Unlock car. Get in. Key in ignition. Seatbelt on.

Start car. Shift gears. Peddle on the right.

Drive.

Santiago had no destination in mind, no plan. For once, the man with a plan had no plan.

“I’m pregnant…”

He felt the whizz of a bullet flying by his cheek.

“I’m pregnant…”

The blood of a civilian spurted through his fingers as he tried to put pressure on the wound.

“I’m pregnant…”

The bodies of kids lined up outside of a village that had just been bombed, that they hadn’t gotten there in time to save.

“I’m pregnant…”

Every echo of Bex’s voice brought a new memory.

Car bombs exploding in Afghanistan.

The numerous deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq.

The countless executions of sicarios in Colombia by the police force.

Tom and the complete fuck up that he had led his friends into.

Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.

Pope looked down for a split second and saw Rebecca’s photo lighting up his screen.

It was a photo they had taken on the Fourth of July. He had taken her out to Will’s cabin out in the middle of the woods, deep enough that none of the seasoned veterans would be able to hear the fireworks exploding overhead. She had spider-monkeyed her way around him as he sat on a log next to the campfire, arms wrapped around his shoulders, legs around his waist, and chest pressed tightly up against his back, and when Benny had seen the way he had smiled at her over his shoulder, he had snapped the photo with his phone.

For a split second, Pope was torn. Did he cave to the guilt that was starting to gnaw at his gut and answer the phone? Did he shut his phone off so he wouldn’t have to hear the rattling sound in his cupholder? In the end, he did neither.

His instincts were driving him to continue down the road, and his heart wouldn’t let him shut off his phone, so he ignored it. He knew she would begin to panic if his phone sent her straight to voicemail but leaving it on allowed her the peace of mind to know that he would answer…eventually. When he was ready.

Pope didn’t pay any attention to his dashboard clock, nor did he pay any mind to the sun that was slowly crawling its way across the sky. He knew hours had passed, he knew that Bex was calling him every ten minutes or so, and he knew that the emptiness of the road and the repetitive hum of the tires below him was soothing his mind.

When his truck dinged, alerting him to the news that his truck had about ten miles left before it ran out of gas, he pulled over, stopped, and refilled the tank with what was left in his gas can before continuing.

He paid attention to the traffic and to the periodic buzzing of his phone, that was it.

Hours passed, his phone buzzing every ten minutes like clockwork until the sun hung low in the sky. Until his phone stopped buzzing.

At the first ten minute mark when his phone didn’t buzz and his and Bex’s smiling faces didn’t appear on his screen, approximately six hours into his drive and approximately around the time when Pope realized he had been driving in circles for at least the last four, he glanced down to make sure that his phone hadn’t died.

Ten minutes after that, he pulled onto a farm road, slowing to a stop on the side of the dirt road. His heart was racing as though he had been running for the past six hours, and he couldn’t understand why.

13 minutes after that, his phone came to life again, a pixelated likeness of Catfish’s face appearing in the dimming light of the sunset. Bex was in that photo too, Frankie pressing a kiss to her cheek while winking at Pope behind the camera.

Pope sighed and cleared his throat, hoping to convey a lightheartedness when he greeted, “Hey Fish, what’s goin’ on?”

Pope heard a screen door slam shut as Frankie growled, “Estúpido hijo de puta.”

Pope pulled the phone away from his ear, making sure it was actually Catfish calling and not some crank call. “Frankie?”

“Santi, do you want to tell me why I’m here with your hysterical girlfriend and you’re not?”

Pope felt his heart sink in his chest. “Fish, I—”

“Bex nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack when she called,” Frankie talked over him. “Sobbing so hard she couldn’t get the words out. I gunned it over to your place thinking you had been kidnapped or something, man. Had an SOS text ready to send to Benny and Will, only to find out that you had just left and you weren’t answering her calls. What the fuck, Pope?”

Pope stepped out of his truck and leaned back against the door, staring out at the reds and purples and golds of the sunset.

“…she’s pregnant, man.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And?” Pope wrenched himself away from the truck and began pacing up and down the abandoned stretch of road. “And I don’t know how the fuck to be a father! I don’t know how to raise a kid to be a benefit to society and not a colossal fuck up! After all the shit I’ve done, all the blood on my hands?” Pope took a shaky, shuddery breath, pressing the phone up to his forehead as he wished he could keep it together. He shouldn’t be saying anything. He should bury all the shit so deep down it never sees the light of day. He should, but it was also Frankie Morales he was talking to. His ride or die since day one. The guy who, no matter what was happening, always gave it to him straight. The brain behind Pope’s brawn.

“What gives me the right, Frankie?” Pope mumbled as he brought the phone back to his ear. “I’ve killed people…I’ve gotten people killed…I’ve let people die…That kid is gonna come into the world all innocent, take one look at me, and see a killer. H—How am I supposed to raise a kid when I can barely keep my own shit together half the time?”

The line was silent for a long time, and Pope helplessly dashed at the water that had pooled in his eyes.

“No sé cómo hacer esto, hermano,” he whispered.

Finally, he heard the telltale rasp of Frankie running his hand over his face. “Chill the fuck out, bro,” Frankie told him in a voice that somehow managed to be both soothing and commanding. “Holding that kid will be the best thing you ever do in your life. The only thing that makes all of the shit worth it.”

“But—”

“No buts, Pope. You wanna know how you’re gonna raise that kid? You’re not,” he said simply. “You and Bex are gonna raise that kid together. You’re gonna make mistakes, and screw up, and so will she, but as long as you’re there, and you love that kid hard, and you actually give a shit, then you’re gonna be leaps and bounds above half the dickheads out there that call themselves dads.” Pope squeezed his eyes shut to stop the tears that were threatening to roll down his cheeks. He didn’t know if Frankie knew that his partner and friend was tearing up in the middle of nowhere, but he also knew that Frankie (and Bex) were probably the only two people on the planet who wouldn’t give him shit for it.

He just couldn’t help it. Six hours ago, his world had exploded, and now Frankie was helping him put it together piece by painful piece. Worst of all was how badly Pope wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that the kid would make all the bullshit he had gone through worth it, but he didn’t dare imagine it. It was too good to be true. He was too broken, too beaten down to make a good father.

“Listen man,” Frankie grunted, and Pope’s keen ears picked up a shuffle in the background that told him Frankie had sat down somewhere. “I’ve got the same blood and shit on my hands that you do. Worse, even, if you consider that mess I got myself into without you. Does that make me a bad dad?”

Pope was already shaking his head. After the mess in Colombia, after Yovanna had decided that he wasn’t worth her time, Pope had come home and settled a few blocks over from where Frankie and his fiancée at the time (now his wife), Charlotte, had settled down. Pope had seen Frankie with his son, Mateo, more times than he could count.

“Frankie—”

“Exactly. And considering where my head was at when Charlie told me she had a bun in the oven, I shoulda been. I could’ve messed that kid up bad…I thought I would, but I didn’t.” Frankie sighed again, and Pope could visualize him scratching at his facial hair. “Santi, bringing that kid into the world is the only thing that’ll make up for all of the shit. Believe me.”

Because it was Frankie, his right-hand man, his best friend, Pope allowed himself to hope. He allowed himself to close his eyes and imagine it. A little baby nestled in his arms, curling up against his chest like he hadn’t killed countless people. Dark eyes looking up at him the way their mother looked at him, with love and kindness, like he didn’t have blood on his hands. A chance to do some good in the world, to bring some light into his life. A chance to raise a kid who could be better than he ever was. Who wouldn’t tear the world down in a storm of bullets and bombs, but maybe, just maybe, build it back up with smiles and love.

Pope choked back a sob. “Frankie, I fucked up.”

“Nah, hermano,” Frankie chuckled. “Your girl loves you. The only way you can fuck up now is if you don’t come home. Then, I’m morally obligated to hunt you down and castrate you.”

Pope chuckled a watery laugh as he climbed back into the cab of his truck. “I’m on my way now.”

“Good, my ass is getting cold from sitting on your front steps,” Frankie laughed.

Pope laughed again, a real laugh this time. “Go home, cabrón.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who has some major ass kissing to do, jackass.”

Pope waited as he could hear Frankie getting into his car. “Seriously, man. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, bro,” Pope heard Frankie’s car start in the background. “Just fix it.”

“I will.”

“Oh, and I call godfather!”

Pope laughed as he hung up and sped down the road. If he kept on this road and obeyed the speed limit, he could make it home in half an hour. He was determined to make it home in twenty.

*******************************************************************************************

It may have been the worst parking job Pope had ever done, with half the car parked on the grass, half on the asphalt, the back end blocking most of the sidewalk, and a few inches between his rear, driver’s side tire and the back end of Rebecca’s car, but he didn’t care. The jovial spirit that had overtaken him at the tail-end of his chat with Frankie had vanished as he got closer and closer to home. He needed to see his girl. He needed to make things right.

He waved as the lights on Frankie’s minivan flashed twice before pulling away from the curb across the street, grateful that his friend had stayed until he had gotten home, and jogged up to the front door, quietly unlocking it and stepping into the silent house.

The lights in the living room were off. As Pope stumbled over the jumble of shoes at the front door, he caught sight of the pile of tissues sitting on the coffee table and felt his heart sink and those tears he had been choking back fight their way up his throat again.

A dull light shone from behind the kitchen door, and Pope tentatively approached it, pressing gently at the swinging door to take a peek inside.

When he caught sight of her, his heart shattered inside his chest.

He’d always thought Rebecca was beautiful, from the second he had caught sight of her at the physiotherapy clinic. Drenched in sweat and red-faced, that had been his first impression of her, but her smile and the playful glint in her eyes had bewitched him in an instant.

He’d seen her dressed to the nines, looking like she’d stepped out of one of those fashion magazines that she kept in her bedside table. He’d seen her in sweats after a day of cleaning house. He’d seen her naked as the day she was born, whimpering and moaning as he painted her chest with his cum. She’d always been beautiful. Stunning, gorgeous.

Even now, Pope had to acknowledge the melancholic beauty that surrounded her. The remnants of tears that clung to her eyelashes, the blotchy red patches that stained her skin, the weariness that tugged her whole body down until she was slumped in her seat at the kitchen table, feet propped up in his seat, her phone just barely visible from where he stood, propped up against her bent legs, one elbow laid across her knees while the other arm was bearing the weight of her head, hand cushioned in the sleeve of her oversized white sweater.

“Baby…” he murmured, pushing his way into the kitchen and standing in the low light cast by the lamp in the center of the table.

It took her a moment, but she finally looked up, tears welling back up in her red-rimmed eyes as she gasped out a sob at the very sight of him.

Whatever had been holding Pope up until that point – call it stubbornness, call it pride, call it resolution – dissolved at that sob.

One step.

Two steps.

His knees hit the hardwood floor as he choked out a sob, tears finally spilling down his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he cried as he buried his face into Rebecca’s thighs. “I’m so, so sorry…”

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, tears turning her pale blue jeans dark, pain radiating from his knees, up to his neck and throughout his limbs, voice growing hoarse as he repeated the words again and again and again.

Finally, finally, Pope felt that touch of grace as she slowly, gingerly raised her hand and began to carefully card it through his thick salt-and-pepper curls. Her touch of kindness only served to make him cry harder as he raised his head and gazed upon her tear-stained face.

“I’m so sorry, mi alma,” he rasped, shuffling forward until his forehead was pressed into her lower belly, where the life they had created together was just beginning to grow. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into the small band of skin that was revealed where her sweater had ridden up.

After what felt like hours, Pope stirred, slowly peeling himself off the floor to stand in front of her. With a hopeful look in his eyes, he extended his hand to her and prayed to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that she would take it.

*******************************************************************************************

Rebecca eyed his extended hand suspiciously. Part of her wanted to slap it away, scream at him for the anguish he had put her through the past few hours, and make him sleep on the couch until the baby was born. But the other part of her, the part that could see the tremor in his arms and legs as he stood there and the pleading look in his eyes and the deep lines that were etched in his forehead, that part of her coaxed her into gently unfolding from her curled up position and taking his hand.

Gently, Santiago helped her to her feet and led her out of the kitchen, down the hall and into their bedroom. She stood there in the doorway as he moved around the room, dropping his black t-shirt and dark jeans into the hamper, placing his watch on his nightstand, and plugging his phone into the charger, until he stopped by her side of the bed, tugging the covers down and looking at her with that same pleading gaze.

Slowly, hesitantly, she followed his lead, stripping down to her bra and panties and sliding under the covers that he was holding up for her. In a flash, Santiago slid into his side of the bed and pulled her tightly to him, her back to his chest with one of his hands gently cradling her still flat belly.

As he pressed a gentle kiss to her bare shoulder, she couldn’t help the shuddery, teary gasp of that one word that had been at the forefront of her mind since he had shut the door in her face and locked it behind him: “Why?”

Rebecca heard him sigh, a long, weary breath out that spoke of exhaustion and trauma.

“When you told me…everything just kind of shut down. All I could think of was to protect.”

“Protect who?”

She felt him shrug. “Protect myself. Protect you from me and all my bullshit. Protect the baby from the fuck up they have as a father.”

“Santi…” she whispered mournfully. “You know I don’t—”

“I know,” he interjected before clearing his throat. “It’s just…I’ve done some really bad things in my life, Bex. I’m not a good person,” he continued in a whisper. “You know some of the stuff that I’ve done, but most of it is so classified I doubt I’ll ever be allowed to talk about it. And I don’t want to. I don’t want you to ever hear about it. So, when you told me we were having a baby, my mind just kind of shut down. All I could think of was how many people I’ve killed; how much blood is on my hands.”

He trailed off as a dark silence loomed over the room.

“You scared me…” she finally whispered.

He chuckled darkly as he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “I scared myself,” he admitted. “I just…I couldn’t imagine how any good could come out of this. I…” he paused, and Rebecca rolled over to face him, watching his Adam’s apple work in his throat. “I don’t deserve to be a dad, Bex.”

She nodded, tears springing to her eyes again at his admittance. She wished he could see what she saw. He was good with kids. So good with them. Watching him with Frankie’s son Mateo was one of the most adorable sights she had ever seen. He would be such a good father. But…she couldn’t force it on him. She knew he had baggage, knew it when she met him, but things had been so good between them that she had hoped they would be okay.

“I…uh, I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to do, Santi,” she murmured, desperately trying to keep the tears out of her voice. “You can be as involved or—”

“Oh baby, no. No, no, shh…” he pulled her into his chest, banding his arms tightly around her back until her head was nestled into his shoulder and his face was buried in her hair. “I’m gonna be better, okay? I swear to god, I’m gonna be better for you and this kid. I called Will on the drive home, and he’s gonna help me find a group to talk to about all this. I can’t promise it won’t happen again but I’m gonna fight as hard as I can to be there for you one hundred percent.” He peeled his face away from her neck and angled himself to look directly into her eyes, their noses almost touching. “I’ll read all the parenting books and go to any and all classes you sign us up for. I’m gonna be there for every appointment. I’ll learn how to give massages if you need me to rub your feet or your back, and I’ll go out for any cravings you might have, even if I have to drive all the way across town at 3 o’clock in the morning.” Tears began pooling in her eyes again, except this time there was a small smile on her face. “When the baby comes, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. You can break my hand if you need to during labor. If you want it to just be us, it’ll just be us. If you want a whole damn camera crew there to document the whole thing, I’ll make it happen.” He pulled her closer and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m gonna get a good job, baby. No more side jobs, no more private sector. I’ll take whatever 9 to 5 I can find to help take care of us. Hell, I’ll take two jobs if you want to be a stay at home mom. Or, if you want, I’ll stay at home with the kid. Whatever you want to do, we’ll do it.”

Finally, Rebecca laughed as happy tears streamed down her face. “You’re rambling, babe.”

Pope laughed too, a happy, relieved sound as he pressed his lips to hers for the first time that evening. “I know, I know,” he whispered, wiping her tears away with his fingertips. “I just need you to know that I’m all in. Whatever you want, whatever you need. Whatever this kid needs. I’m here. I’m gonna be a dick sometimes, and I’m gonna make mistakes, and I’m gonna be so far out of my league between you and this kid, but I’m gonna be here. I swear to god.”

Rebecca giggled, pulling her hand from his chest to play with the grey baby curls at the back of his neck. “That’s all we need,” she whispered as she pulled him closer to plant a sweet, loving kiss on his lips. She pulled back and ran a fond hand over his cheek. “Just promise me, next time this happens, you let me know. Just a word or a gesture or something?”

Pope nodded, ashamed of his actions. He was always the first to go in, guns blazing, no thought to his own safety if it meant protecting his team. But the second he found out about the baby, he had left his most important teammate behind to fend for herself.

“I promise, baby. And I’m so sorry…” he nuzzled into her cheek and pressed a gentle kiss to her dimple.

She smiled at him as she rolled over and rested her head on his bicep. “We’re gonna be okay, babe,” she yawned, her eyes drifting closed after the emotional day she had had.

Pope nestled in behind her, not leaving an inch of space between them. Lying there, happy with the woman he loved in his arms, Pope took a deep breath and allowed himself to drift off, her words echoing in his mind. They would be okay. He’d make sure of it.

*******************************************************************************************

Tags List: @darksideofclarke, @writefightandflightclub, @eternallyvenus, @rae-rae-patcha

#santiago pope garcia x oc #santiago pope garcia #triple frontier #triple frontier fanfic #oscar issac #fanfic

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iristhemessenger · 4 years ago

Text

Just for a moment, dance with me?

My very first Wayhaven fic, in the spirit of sharing more F content! <3

Pairing: Felix Hauville/f.Detective (Eris Evergreen)

Summary: Eris' life has been anything but simple these days, her thoughts heavy with the safety of her town and the bloodthirsty monster who threatens them all. She just needs a moment, one blissful moment to take her mind off of it all and Felix may be just the person to help her out. After all, how can she say 'no' to that charming smile?

The song "Cheerleader" of course belongs to Omi, and is a personal favorite for those days when you just feel like dancing to something with a little bop. ^-^

~ * ~

“When I need motivation

My one solution is my queen

'Cause she stay strong (yeah yeah)

She is always in my corner

Right there when I want her

All these other girls are tempting

But I'm empty when you're gone

And they say

Do you need me?

Do you think I'm pretty?

Do I make you feel like cheating?

And I'm like no, not really 'cause

Oh I think that I found myself a cheerleader

She is always right there when I need her”

For such a small town where barely anything happens, Eris will never understand how she still manages to find a towering stack of paperwork and reports on her desk nearly every morning, demanding her attention as she eyes the pile wearily. It has been a quiet day, all things considered, giving her more than ample time to make a good dent in said paperwork.

Most of them are small things, little complaints lodged by bickering neighbors or elder members of the community expressing their displeasure with the local youth who wander the streets, playing their music too loud or generally just standing around and being a nuisance.

She is not sure how many times she’s had to explain to Mrs. Henderson, one of Wayhaven’s regular complainants, that young Micky Roads and his small group of friends were not part of some drug-peddling gang, merely enthusiastic beat-boxers who preferred to share their music with the rest of the town than in the confines of his mother's basement.

Still, she should be thankful that such petty grievances are her only worries these days. What with Murphy running around still free, a part of her had been anxiously waiting for the phone at the station to ring yet again, signalling another death at the crazed vampire’s hands. Yet another life she had failed to protect, just like Garret Hayes.

She knows there's nothing she could have done in the grand scheme of things, but that only alleviated her guilt by a small margin. She was supposed to protect the innocent, supposed to be someone they could turn to in their time of fear and need but this...with Murphy, her blood, her mother, Unit Bravo and the Agency. It was all too much, and so out of her realm of control and understanding.

How was she supposed to prepare her town, her people, for such chaos without causing wide-spread panic among the residents of Wayhaven. If they even believed her at all, that was.

She wouldn’t blame them if they called her batty, no pun intended, this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she expected to be dealing with when she took on the title of detective for the town. The police academy didn’t exactly train one for handling bloodthirsty, serial killing supernaturals.

She was tempted to write them a letter, to correct that particular oversight.

Not that it would do much good, she knew her mother would only destroy any such evidence against the Agency through her, she was guessing at this point, numerous contacts in order to maintain the secrecy of their shadow agency and dealings with the supernatural.

“Good morning, detective!” A familiar, jovial voice calls out, breaking the silence and her own morose thoughts.

Looking up from her desk, Eris can't help the smile that almost involuntary spreads across her face upon seeing her guest. It’s nothing compared to the dazzling smile that greets her in return as Felix saunters into her office. Eyes so intent on her she fidgets in her chair a little, unused to such undivided attention.

“It’s my turn to escort you home this fine evening.” He explains, giving her a once over that has goosebumps prickling over her skin under his appreciative gaze. “Though, admittedly, you are much finer.”

“Oh?” She raises an eyebrow, confused. “Not that I am complaining, but I thought it was Mason’s turn to take me home tonight?”

It had become the new norm at this point, the members of Unit Bravo taking turns escorting or babysitting her throughout the day while the others patrolled the town and surrounding area for Murphy.

She had already spent a delightful morning with Adam.

Sarcasm heavy on the 'delightful' as the leader of the vampiric agents had made no attempt to hide his annoyance when she'd insisted on a small outing from the station to Haley's bakery, for her regular morning caramel macchiato and blueberry scone. Citing the venture as 'inadvisable' and 'ridiculously foolhardy' when the station already had a (semi) working coffee machine in the break room.

The fact that it made coffee that looked and tasted like tar was, of course, of no concern to him.

Seeing Felix after an entire morning of that, and a few more mysteriously dented filing cabinets and a now unusable soap dispenser in the men's room, was honestly a breath of fresh air.

Nothing against Mason, who she suspected was finally beginning to warm up to her (he’d even begun to put out his cigarettes during their car rides back to her home, knowing how much she disliked the smell) but she found that she enjoyed spending time with Felix.

The younger vampire’s mere presence seemed to set her at ease, in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Whether it was his constant string of jokes, as strange as they could be sometimes, or his boundless optimism, whatever it was she sorely needed that right now.

“Ah, well…” He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, unwilling to admit that Mason had only agreed to switch their shifts because he had all but begged the older vampire until he’d grown fed up with his nagging. “Adam decided to take him out to patrol the warehouse district again for signs of Murphy or a potential hideout. So, you get me for the afternoon instead, if that's ok by you?”

There's a slight hint of uncertainty at the end of his usually confident southern drawl, one he hopes she doesn't catch into.

"Of course it is!" She nods, and he is happy to see her smile, genuine and honest, still in place. Not to mention he'd noted the slight jump in her pulse and heartbeat when he’d announced himself earlier, making his own grin widen. "I always enjoy your company."

"Careful detective, keep buttering me up with sweet words and I'll never want to leave you alone." He teases, with a wink for good measure.

"Oh, heavens forbid." She teases back without missing a beat, shuffling some papers on her desk. "How would I ever manage?"

Felix is practically beaming now down at her, basking in their easy banter. He enjoys these stolen moments with the detective, who was infinitely more fun than patrol duty. Even if at some point he knew they would eventually have to part ways, he would take what he could get. He wanted to savor the time with Eris while he could, and if she were amenable to his flirting and interest, even after discovering their true nature, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn her away.

“I’m almost done with these reports” She sighs, “just waiting on some paperwork from Tina and we’ll be good to go if that sounds ok?”

He watches her as she stretches her arms high above her head, in an attempt to ease the stiffness that has made its way through her body. Her back arches in the chair, chest lifting forward, revealing every soft, and ample curve beneath her light blue t-shirt. The young vampire licks his top lip.

“More than ok, excellent even.”

His voice is smoother than silk when he answers, and she swears something breaks within her at the sound of it, leaving her flustered as she catches his eye. She clears her throat, sinking back into her chair.

"Alright then, good...that's...good."

Without another word, but his usual, cocky grin now firmly plastered on his face at a job well done, the agent makes himself comfortable. Draping his body across what has now become his usual chair in her office, feet in the air he crosses his arms across his chest and settles in.

As uncomfortable as the chair itself was, as he often complained, for some reason he continued to stake his claim, flopping into that particular chair every chance he got.

The fact that it was close to her desk, giving them both a clear view of the other, was a nice side benefit to be sure.

It's not long before the quiet she'd found herself in before returns, as Felix does his best not to disturb her. She appreciates his effort, though she can tell it is a trying endeavor as she catches his feet twitching.

In an attempt to alleviate his boredom, she turns on her radio. It's already tuned in to her favorite station, and soon the office is filled with music and she can't help but smile softly as a pleased grin spreads across the vampire's shapely mouth.

Felix, for his part, is grateful to find the station plays modern, up to date songs. Not that he didn’t like the music Nate often played, per say, but it did lack a certain energy to it that Felix craved.

Keeping a not-so-subtle eye on the detective, he is happy to see she seems to be of the same mindset. While looking over a few documents, she unconsciously begins to bob her head to the catchy, upbeat rhythm of a song Felix knows well.

To his extreme delight, he even sees her begin to follow the words, perfectly lip-syncing every lyric as she continues to follow the beat.

He watches her lips as they move, soft, pink, a little chapped and bare of any lipstick or gloss. Aside from the barest hint of eyeliner and complimentary eye shadow, he notes she doesn’t wear much make-up. Preferring a more natural look, which suits her well he thinks.

Felix soaks it all in, this moment with her. Unguarded, relaxed, being here with Eris. It felt, so natural and right. He’d never felt like this before with another person, aside from his teammates. He wants to keep it, keep her, but he does his best from getting too excited, just in case.

She’s been very receptive to his flirting, albeit a tad shy which he found adorable, allowing him to savour the growing attraction between them. But, he couldn't help but wonder. What about something…more?

He’s brought out of his own thoughts when her eyes, dark blue like sapphires, catch his. She instantly straightens, brushing a strand of long, black hair behind her ear and clears her throat.

“I, uh, I really like this song...” She admits biting her bottom lip, embarrassed at having been caught.

Felix only smiles, loving the soft blush that blossoms over her fair skin as her pulse quickens.

“You have excellent taste,” His eyes sparkle impishly. “This is one of my favorites too! I wonder what else we have in common, we should definitely take the time to find out...”

He practically purrs the last part, and she can’t help but laugh nervously at how easily he manages to fluster her.

“Back in college I used to be a member of this dance team, and this song was a part of one of our regular routines...” She confesses, voice trailing off as she realizes what she's just said.

Gods, why was she telling him this?! It wasn’t something she advertised, exactly. Though, there had been the occasional incident where Verda or Tina had walked in on her jamming out in her office in an attempt to blow off steam after a particularly nasty meeting with the mayor or a run-in with Bobby.

To her surprise, instead of laughing at her like she expected, Felix jumps out of his chair so suddenly she barely sees him before he is leaning excitedly over her desk. His face is so close to her own, she nearly falls backwards, chair and all at the sudden proximity.

“Show me?!” His excitement is hard to deny, and she finds herself smiling at his enthusiasm.

“S-show you? Like, now, here in the office?” She repeats, receiving a vigorous nod in return.

“Yeah, it’ll be much more fun than just waiting around for those reports. Besides, you can’t not show me after letting that juicy bit of information slip just now.”

He can’t be serious, she thinks, but looking into those earnest eyes, so open and honest, she knows there’s no way he isn’t. They’ve spent enough time together at this point for her to get a sense of the young vampire’s exuberant nature, and, lacking anything else of immense interest to distract him, she knows there’s no getting out of this without refusing him flat out.

The very notion of telling him ‘no’ and potentially losing that bright smile of his doesn’t exactly sit well with her either, for reasons she doesn’t care to dwell on. So, sighing dramatically, she reluctantly gets out of her chair.

“Ok, ok…it’s been awhile so bear with me.” She says, moving to the middle of the room.

Shaking her arms and legs a bit, Eris takes a few steadying breathes in an attempt to quell her nerves. A difficult task considering she is now the focus of Felix’s attention, those amber eyes of his trained solely on her.

She has to think on it a bit, moving her feet and arms in various motions and poses before the movements become familiar again and, smiling like a fool, she is able to recall the entire routine from muscle memory until she is gliding and bopping across the floor of her office like she used to during her college days.

For a single, blissful moment, she forgets where she is. Caught in the nostalgia of her memories and the music.

Simpler, happier times when the world made sense. Before everything turned upside down, before poor Janet and Garret's deaths. Before her mother and Unit Bravo came crashing into her town, and life. Before she found herself being hunted down by a psychopathic vampire for a mutation within her blood she never knew she had before a few days ago.

Just dancing, in the quad with her former classmates and friends. Laughing, letting all their worries melt away as they practiced their routines. Improvising along the way, goofing off and having a good time despite the pressures of upcoming exams and troublesome boyfriends or girlfriends.

Felix watches her the entire time, absorbing the routine with such an immersed focus she can’t help but feel the heat creeping up along her neck to the tips of her ears. Especially when his eyes seem to stray to her swaying hips, his interest blatant and intense.

Swallowing hard, she comes to an abrupt stop and laughs awkwardly. Staring at the floor, with it’s uninteresting color palette. “Welp, yeah…that’s it!"

I’ll just go die of embarrassment now , she groans internally as she turns back to her desk.

“No, wait!” He stops her, reaching out to catch her by her arm. She shivers. The touch of his hand on her bare skin sends a pleasant warmth throughout her body, traveling all the way down to her toes. It's not dissimilar to the same feeling she'd experienced the day they'd gone to Kate's, when he'd ventured to touch her before getting back into her poor, beat up hatchback.

He feels it too, staring down at where his hand grasps her forearm. His smile softens, and he takes the moment to brush his thumb along her skin. As if relishing the touch and the sensations it gives them both, and she relaxes into the touch. “I really liked it, your dance. I think I got the moves down, let me try it with you, please?”

She only hesitates a moment as she considers, before nodding. He releases her, though he appears reluctant to do so. To her own surprise, she also feels a pang of regret at the loss of contact.

Grabbing her phone from her desk, she opens up her playlists on her music app. It doesn't take her long to find the song she's looking for, despite the numerous playlists she has collected over the years.

Music had always been therapeutic for her, a means of escaping or dealing with the world in the absence of her mother. Dancing was an extension of that, a fun hobby that had helped her work off stress and gain a few friends along the way.

And now, here in her office, during what had to be the most chaotic time of her life, she was able to share it with Felix. Grinning at the thought, she positions her phone upright before pressing play. The same song from the radio begins anew, and she returns to her position in the center of the room.

This time, Felix happily sidles up next to her, so eager she can practically feel him vibrating with barely contained excitement. She’s never met anyone with so much raw energy before, and she’s sure not even Tina could match him in sheer vivacity.

As they begin the routine, Eris can't help but think he would have made an excellent addition to her former dance team. In more ways than one, she decides after they run through the steps a few times. He's a quick learner, following her lead, and perfectly imitating every movement..

Surprisingly, it’s not long before they fall into an easy groove. Their timing, uncertain and new at first, quickly becomes almost second nature by the time they all but perfect the routine and soon they find themselves laughing and smiling as they lose themselves to the rhythm. Felix is a natural performer, his movements graceful yet laced with his usual cheer and vibrance, as they dance to the hip-hop tempo of the song.

“She walks like a model

She grants my wishes like a genie in a bottle (yeah yeah)

'Cause I'm the wizard of love

And I got the magic wand

All these other girls are tempting

But I'm empty when you're gone

And they say

Do you need me?

Do you think I'm pretty?

Do I make you feel like cheating?

And I'm like no, not really 'cause

Oh I think that I found myself a cheerleader

She is always right there when I need her”

Eris can only imagine how they would look to the rest of the station, if Tina or Verda, or god-forbid Douglas, walked in on them at that moment. There would be no end to the heckling she’d endure, that was for sure but for now it didn’t matter. They were carefree and safe behind these four walls, away from the troubles that haunted her outside of the sanctuary of her office.

The song eventually ends, but her playlist goes on, queuing up the next song in her library. It's another dance hit, one she recalls often being played in the local bars and dance halls that she and her friends would frequent. Dancing long into the night, until they were a merry band of sweaty limbs and clothes, high off the adrenaline and fruity cocktails plied by the bartenders and eager would-be paramours.

“Ah, hell yeah!” Felix laughs, “this is another good one! Your playlist is fire, detective.”

Without pause, they throw themselves into the new song, adding their own unique bit of flair here and there as they dance.

“Any cool routines go with this one?”

She shakes her head as she shimmies and rolls her hips playfully around the vampire, who watches her closely. “Nope! Completely freestyle, think you can handle that?”

“Oh, I can more than handle…” He promises, rolling his lips suggestively. He beckons her, wagging his finger in a come-hither gesture. “Show me what you got, detective?”

She laughs, mirth bubbling over.

For the first time since all of this mess started she feels light, her natural endorphins kicking in and setting her at ease.

When the moment presents itself, Felix takes the opportunity to take her by the hand. Twirling her here and there, bringing her closer as her back falls against his chest before whipping her away once again. He's quick on his feet, and thanks to her years of experience, dancing with numerous partners Eris finds herself able to match and meet his pace with little trouble as the two moved in tandem.

Soon enough, they find themselves swaying together. It’s the closest she’s ever been, physically, to the younger agent by themselves. A fact that Felix seems to pick up on as well, though he feels very little inclination to resume any distance between them. If anything, he takes advantage of the moment, eyes eagerly seeking her’s as he dares to rest his hand on her waist.

The touch sends an instant jolt up her spine, but she doesn't push him away. Instead, she melts into him, meeting his gaze and welcoming the heat that has been building between them.

She’ll never get over how beautiful his eyes are. Like gemstones, sparkling gold and striking. She could lose herself in them forever. It’s amazing how easily they fall into each other, as if they’d been dancing together for years.

“This kind of music and dancing is definitely more my speed, not like the fancy ballroom dancing Nate likes. Though, he is really good at it.” Felix breaks the tension, laughing lightly. “He did teach me a few fun moves too.”

She barely hears him, but smiles and nods anyways. The blood pumps loudly in her ears, heart racing as she feels the sweat begin to drip down her temple. It’s been awhile since she went this hard. Usually, even her most energetic dance sessions were within the safe confines of her apartment. Felix, frustratingly, looks unperturbed by all their physical exertion. Yet another vampire perk, she guessed.

"Here comes the dip!" He announces suddenly, leaving her only a fraction of a second to react as he suddenly drops her downward.

Her arms reach out, instinctively wrapping around his neck to keep from falling. He may not have the sheer muscle mass or height of his companions, but Eris can feel the strength in Felix's arms and neck as he holds her tightly. He’s slender, but solid.

"Don't worry, I got you!" He laughs, lilting voice taking on a huskier tone as he speaks. "I won't let you go, unless you want me to…though, that may be a bit difficult. I kind of like holding you like this.”

Eris feels her heart skip a few beats as she processes his words. Chest rising and falling as she attempts to catch her breath, the heat that had momentarily been abandoned returning full force, crackling in the sparse space left between them.

Charged and tempting, like a favorite candy left unsupervised on the table. All one had to do was give in, indulge in that first, sweet taste...

“Well, you two seem to be having fun.”

Startled, Eris looks up to see Verda standing in the doorway of her office. There is no mistaking the twinkle in his eye, or the amused twitch to the corner of his mouth and suddenly Eris feels the need to bury herself in a deep, deep hole. Beside him, or more like towering behind him, is an all too familiar, and exceptionally handsome face.

“Felix, this is hardly what I’d call escorting Eris home.” Nate sighs. Despite his soft rebuke, she can still see a small, indulgent smile on the man’s face.

“Oops, sorry Natey!” Felix laughs, quickly helping her back to her feet. “We were just having a bit of fun. Right?"

He shifts his gaze back to her, eyes bright, still filled with the vigor of their dancing and the sizzling remnants of their lost moment.

"Sorry, Nate it's my fault." Eris tries to apologize, smoothing the wrinkles from her shirt. It was more a joint effort, if she was being honest, but she was also the one who gave into Felix's request in the first place. So, she felt somewhat responsible for their delay.

It felt silly, like being caught by a parent with a cookie from the cookie jar before dinner. Not that she would know what that was like.

"I'd be inclined to believe that, Eris. However, Felix has a much longer track record than you when it comes to belying his duties." He says, casting a knowing look at said agent.

Felix only smiles with a shrug, looking perfectly unapologetic.

She chuckles, patting him on the shoulder. "Welp, I tried. Never let it be said I didn’t try to defend your good name.”

“Detective!” Placing a hand to his chest, Felix sighs dreamily. “My personal knight in shining armor. You sure know how to make a guy feel special.”

"I just came to deliver these for you, from Tina." Verda chimes in, passing the manilla envelopes to the still-grinning Eris.

"And where did Tina get off too?''

Now, his smile vanishes, "she left work a little early so she could try and catch Kate at the dental office, drive her home...poor woman has been on autopilot since her son's passing…"

A somber silence falls over the room, the reality of death reclaiming the once vibrant and merry atmosphere. It's almost suffocating.

Nate clears his throat, thankfully breaking the sudden quiet that blankets them all.

"Well, let's be off then before Adam comes looking for us both." Eris cringes, she can only imagine the stiff lecture that would follow if that ended up happening.

"Let me file these away, then I'll grab my coat and meet you two out front?"

"Sounds good." Nate agrees with a soft smile, warm brown eyes alight in good cheer.

After Felix, Nate is another member of Unit Bravo who sets Eris at ease. The man exuded a natural warmth and openness that was hard to resist, not to mention rare, for which she was grateful for. A stark contrast to the other two members of their team who were currently not present.

"A good night to you then, Eris." Verda nods, "I am going to call it a day, Eric and the kids have dinner waiting for me. Mustn't let it get cold, I’d never hear the end of it."

She smiles, nodding. "Have a good night, Verda. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, say ‘hi’ to the family for me."

The vampires move to follow the pathologist out of her office, Felix gracing her with another wink as he trails after Nate to wait outside.

"Hey, Felix." She calls out, before he disappears.

He stops in the doorway, turning back to smile at her. "What's up, detective? Itching for another dance already, because I wouldn’t say no to that."

"No, I mean - I would, it's just…" she runs a hand through her hair, letting out a breath. How did he always manage to get her so worked up? "Thank you."

"For what?" He asks, smile dropping a little in confusion.

"For...taking my mind off things. I was kind of in a funk before you came to get me, and the dancing just now...well, it really helped. So, thank you for that."

Eris thinks she's seen most of Felix's expressions by this point, the agent has varying degrees of excitement and cheer, whether genuine or cheeky. Occasionally somber, like he had been with Kate. But the look on his face now could only be described as, well, almost bashful.

"I, heh, well...your welcome, then." Eris blinks, surprised at his response. She's never quite heard him at a loss for words before. He turns away, rubbing the side of his neck. Was he, was he blushing? "Always here to help…"

He laughs, the sound not at all like his usual loud, boisterous laugh. More like a self-conscious chuckle, as he shifts awkwardly on his feet. “I, uh...I better get to Nate, before he thinks I am holding you up again. Don’t keep me-us waiting too long, alright?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of my presence, even for a few seconds.” She jests, enjoying the leverage she seems to have gained over the normally unflappable flirt.

He stares at her, as if he’s never seen anything quite like her before bursting into another nervous laugh. “Your something else, you know that?”

With that, Felix tears himself away and she smiles at his retreating back. It was nice to know she could throw the usually charming and cheeky agent off of his game, giving him a taste of his own medicine every once in a while was very cathartic for all the times he managed to leave her a stammering mess.

Still, biting her bottom lip in thought as she recalls the heated moment they'd shared, she wonders what would have happened had Nate and Verda not shown up. How much of this, all the flirting and back and forth, was simply a fun distraction for the vampire who seemed to draw her in so effortlessly with his easy smile and otherworldly eyes.

He seemed the type to love them and leave them, moving on to the next new and interesting thing that caught his fancy. Though, it felt wrong to think of him like that, as if there was still so much more to him she had yet to see and understand. Maybe there was more to him, hidden beneath the charming smiles and quick quips, waiting for the right person to take an interest and a closer look.

Watching her from a short distance, lingering at the station's entrance, she can't see the soft amber eyes that mirror her own musings. Wondering if maybe she might take him up on that second dance, just the two of them, and where it might lead.

Would it be so bad, he thinks. After this whole mess with Murphy was settled, he knew they'd be called away again to god-knows wherever they were needed next. But, watching the detective as she finished her day's work, catching the way she smiled softly as she mouthed a few familiar words from the song they'd danced to just moments ago, he feels a sudden, anxious kind of excitement pull at his chest at the possibilities.

Until then, Felix forces himself to turn away. With a spring in his step, he replays the feeling of her skin against his own, the beating of her heart, her enticing aroma surrounding him, overwhelming his senses. Snuggling into his thick, cotton scarf he savors the memory. Bracing himself for the cold, and Nate, both waiting for him outside the warmth of the station.

He would definitely need to see about that second dance, he decides with some conviction. Hopefully, before they were forced to return to their lives before all of this killing and madness.

With a wide grin, he hums happily, the same tune that he would now forever associate as their song to their first dance.

~ * ~

“Oh I think that I found myself a cheerleader

She is always right there when I need her

She gives me love and affection

Baby did I mention, you're the only girl for me

No I don't need a next one

Mama loves you too, she thinks I made the right selection

Now all that's left to do

Is just for me to pop the question

Oh I think that I found myself a cheerleader

She is always right there when I need her

Oh I think that I found myself a cheerleader

She is always right there when I need her.”

~ * ~

Below is a link to the routine I had in mind when picturing Felix and Eris’ dancing, if you're curious, choreo by Blacka Di Danca ft. Fraules <3

Thank you for reading! I have a few more stories in mind for Flirty Hotville, so he may be making an appearance again here soon…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E46VmGLc88

#twc #f hauville #eris x felix hauville #the wayhaven chronicles #these two dancing fools #i love them so much #felix hauville #<33333 #yes they make their own playlist after this

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amxwolf · 3 years ago

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Here is why conventional healthful-thinking is not working on Millennials.

Have you ever had that terrifying dream where you are stuck in a dark forest or sketchy alley, frantically running for your life from some kind of feral monster or mad man? Most of us can personally recall at least once being roused from sleep in a cold sweat because their brain had spent the last few hours perfecting the latent image of a made-to-order nightmare. While that experience is certainly not exclusive to Millennials (rather quite the opposite), the waking reaction or at least how it is processed later by this roughly categorized group of mislabeled people is unique to say the least.

For years now, people in marketing have been fervently dissecting and attempting to recreate what has been loosely categorized as "Millennial Humor". And in all of their efforts to connect with this flock of black sheep, the grand majority of them seem to be missing a key factor in the psychology at work here. For all the unwarrantable bilge that modern advertising haphazardly cobbles together, only a small percentage of the nonsense is seasoned perfectly with the secret ingredient. What is this singular spice? Well, while indulgent to profess and speculative, from someone "sitting in millennial class”, it's obvious: A touch of salt.

Never will I sit here and cry to the general public about how unhappy I am that the modern advertising industry is just not scratching my itch for the wares it’s peddling, but I think it's important for us now to look at how this systemic lack of understanding is reaching beyond the world of subliminal profiteering. Society has other significant quality-of-life effecting systems that are also missing the mark when trying to aim and reach out to help this specific group of people. Puns aside, "a touch of salt" as I quipped, is flavoring the lives of a lot of people in their mid to late 20's and early 40's. And the most frustrating and difficult to reconcile attempts that I personally have made to better myself, have been those that were guided by people who just cannot seem to put their brain into that salty head space.

For example, trying to focus on and internalize a well-organized medical presentation about the encompassing negative effects of stress or insomnia and its seemly simple solution of just "changing your thinking", is about as easily digestible as a two-decade-year-old fruitcake for someone who is imprisoned daily by the symptoms of chronic stress. While I may sit there and give listening (ironically) "the old college try", the sound quickly turns to fuzzy white noise the deeper the lecture dives into positive thinking.

You see, Millennials are not generally fluent in positive thinking. More and more of them seem to be speaking a very distinctive dialect of realism, which incorporates a robustly cultivated sense of sarcasm and a somewhat grim shade of hopelessness. A lot of millennials grew up with a laughably poetic twist on "Growing Up" and "Being Successful", which in turn has colored their day-to-day interactions and created this defeatism-culture. Millennials will openly joke about their death as a needed release, their eulogy as a retirement card, or emotionally decompile themselves over something simple like saying "you too" in a situation that doesn't warrant it.

A good percentage of Millennials were old enough to understand the destructive consequences of the most recent housing market disaster on a very personal level; At an impressionable age, watching their own parents, who may have worked excruciatingly hard at the expense of any number of personal or family goals, lose just about everything resonated in a way that cannot be unheard. Then add the borderline criminal and unscrupulous "sheep-shearing" that became common place when the generation was herded off to college, trade school, or other form of career-building education. Not to mention the fact that upon completing said programs, a proverbial "step-in-the-right direction", a substantial number of these "hopeless wanderers" were faced with yet another barbed-wire hurdle when the job market in countless fields were oversaturated with potential employees. Many positions had not been vacated as they normally would have been with the age of retirement being stretched further and further down the road due to increased cost of living and financial demands; the finish line or lap marker was just not getting any closer. To add insult to injury, Millennials, sometimes unbelievably hardworking, are frequently being listed as perpetuators of the clashing reality we have today. This being what the modern media is calling "The Great Resignation"; a dubious combination of a labor shortage amidst an unemployment spike fueled by uncompetitive wages left unchecked, the government's inability to reel in the situation, and a general devaluing of laborers overall.

Oh. And also, we were killing the diamond industry at the same time. Or was it simultaneously the marriage and divorce industry? Wait! I think it was cinema? Or no....maybe it was fabric softener. For a complete dissertation of all the things Millennials brutally murdered over the last two decades, perhaps I'll include a link below if for no other reason to drive my point home.

You have this group of people who are conditioned to endlessly swimming upstream, against the current, with nothing but chastising and bitterness to listen to. So, when it comes to something universal like learning to "sleep better" or "problem solving", the indifferent but somehow time-honored approach of saying "it's as easy as just taking control" is over time if not immediately rejected as dissonant information.

These people don't feel like they have control; some of them feel like they never had any to begin with.

Why is this a problem?

Our society is not developing a taste for "salt" at a pace in which it can prepare social-sustenance for its population. We're not getting any younger, and neither are the generations in front of us.

Millennials are already, by some definitions the mass-population of workers, voters, and other titles that we've yet to embrace. And our lack of interest is not because we do not have a passion for positive change (even on a global scale). Millennials have voiced over time that they feel they are the silent majority amidst a group of people who will not give them breathing room and don't respect the validity of their opinions and ambitions. And it is by no means restricted to one region or country on this planet. This is a global phenomenon.

I could spin a vast yarn about the political ramifications of continuing to exclude the Millennials from the metaphoric Counsel of Elders, but I'm more concerned about the neglect that is spreading elsewhere. We need our leaders in the medical and social fields to really respect and dig deep into how to incorporate "Millennial Thinking" into their treatment and development plans. A large amount of the global population is going to need carefully tailored treatment for things as old as depression, bi-polar tendencies, or schizophrenia as well as newly discovered mental encumbrances like imposter-syndrome.

While “positive-thinking” may have been easily cultivated in the past, we may need to start from a more negative approach and build from there to educate and treat a group of down-on-their-luck millions. Pumping drugs into a populace is not going to permanently patch the leak either, so there truly is precedence for a rehashing of how we should prioritize mental health in modern society.

Stop spending so much time and energy assigning blame to modern technologies and social norms. Are these going away? No? In that case, those things are much like our other daily stresses that are unavoidable. Yes, you can change your nightly routine to de-stress the same way that you can change a job or a daily commute, but there needs to be a fundamental shift in accountability divvied to circumstances out of a person's control rather than scolding them for not being able to manage it.

Do I have all the answers? No.

But this was less about offering a solid a solution and more about opening a dialogue. A starting point.

So yeah. I've had that dream of being chased through the woods by a life-leeching alien. It felt very similar to being sucked dry of my pitiful wages for an education that was at the time, barely panning out. Even now, as a 32-year-old, slightly more successful version of the starving student I've become, I still feel as though my rat race will end when my heart gives out; and all I can hope for is enough money when I drop to cover the ambulance ride to the over-crowded emergency room and a large pit to rot in. But I just hope that the generation behind me has the benefit of a system that understands how to create and sustain “Millennial Inspired” social structures that will allow them to flourish in what little we can leave behind for them.

Also, could you pass the salt?

#rant #millenials #heavy thoughts #random thoughts #seriously though modern mental medicine is a joke

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portectorisms · 3 years ago

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|| closed starter for | @everhaunted

A man of his word, Bellamy had made his way out of the comforts of the home he shared with his sister and back to his car parked in the driveway. The fading sun was quiet. There was nothing but a small breeze outside that ruffled the curls of his hair as he made his way to the vehicle. The house behind him was silent and cold. The lights were off, there was no sounds coming from inside. Octavia was gone, off doing whatever and Bellamy barely spent his own nights in the comforts of the walls. Home had never really been a place to him, no matter what age he had been, he was always out. Always doing something. Always staying busy. At one point, home was nothing more than a prison that he worked in, like a jailer who took care of the others behind bars. He was no better than them when he was child, but he's no longer that little boy who once had stars and fear hidden in his gaze. He's a man now, one that wore a uniform for a living, that stood on the battlefields of war and pulled the trigger when he let his mind become another person. After all, the ability to kill a person meant shutting off a part of himself in order to do it, no matter the reasons, no matter the consequences, he had no choice. He was a far better soldier than he was a person, at least he knew that much to keep going in the military.

His car hadn't been off for long, as the cool air seemed to still be shifting around inside, settling easily into the seats and the floorboard. It was long enough for him to shower and change and now he's back on the road, booted foot on the peddle as he makes his way towards the closest coffee shop between his place and Shiloh's work place. He had met her at a bonfire of all places. Invited on a whim to a party that he saw as nothing more than a distraction. A place to hang out with others, drink a little beer, flirt a little here and there and maybe go back to someone else's bed, lose himself between their sheets and slip out right after it was done. Nothing more than a series of distractions to keep his mind occupied. Perhaps this was the same thing. Perhaps this was his way of understanding that he needed to always be a god damn busybody to not think or feel just what his mind has inside of it. Case in point, the loud music blaring from the car's speakers, forcing him to focus on it and the road that stretched out ahead and the oncoming traffic that was passing by. At least the coffee would taste good.

Coffee in hand and a place to park, Bellamy made his way out of his car, setting the two plastic cups down upon the roof of his car before pulling his phone from his pocket and double checking the messages and the time. Bellamy had worked his fair share of jobs through high school after the death of his mother and living under the roof of someone else, so he's no stranger to changing tags on a shelf but this? He may have to actually suck up his pride and ask for a crash course just so he doesn't fuck up her job for her, giving her more work to do. Making his way to the door, after grabbing the cups off the roof of his car, he shifts them around, pulling open the unlocked door, stepping inside, the slow smile sprawling across his worn features. "Hey Shiloh, cool place." He greets her easily, looking around the shop he's stepped foot inside. He hadn't known this place existed until just a little while ago and now, he may have to come be a customer here. His closet could always use some new shirts in it. "One coffee with two creams and no sugar for the lady." His smile grows as he offers her the cup with an outstretched hand. "And one guy who's gonna need a crash course in how to help get this job done faster for you."

#everhaunted #conversations: Shiloh Hawthorne #tbt (Modern)#here we goooooo

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palmett-hoes · 5 years ago

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alright alright alright let’s pretend this isn’t almost a full week late. here’s my piece for the @aftgexchange for Valentine’s day. this is for @black-glasses-and-books, who asked for an Andreil diner au. This is actually the first fic I’ve ever fully completed in my life, sooooo whew. also a special thank you to @leahlisabeth for being incredibly patient with me despite having let her down no less than three different times

**warnings for blood, loss of bladder control, minor sexual assault, and major, violent retaliation for sexual assault. dub-con reminiscent of the books, and at length discussion of that dub-con**

Neon Lights at Night

An hour and a half north of Columbia - the armpit of the South - on the edge of the dying little town of Palmetto that hung onto the interstate for dear life, a 24/7 diner called the Foxhole lit up the night a hundred different shades of neon orange. It was the first (and sometimes only) attraction listed on the past three rest stop signs.

It was actually a few miles from the exit, but still bright enough to be seen from the road (though, really it could be seen from space). Luckily for Palmetto, most unfortunate suckers driving through the boonies ended up at the Foxhole, eventually trickling further into town for gas or souvenirs or a place for the night, or just to look at the rundown town with its dusty southern charm and its friendly but flinty-eyed inhabitants. None of them would come without the Foxhole shining on the hill like a will-o'-the-wisp.

The graveyard shift, though, saw very, very few of those curious people who came through during the day. In fact, it saw very, very few people at all. Maybe five or six a night if things were really hopping, but the owner - David Wymack - had made a vow that his diner would be open 24/7 for whatever poor bastards trickled in. It didn't matter if it was noon or midnight, dawn or dusk - any wayward birds would have a place to rest their wings. Usually the ones that wandered in past midnight were a mix of addicts, car campers, and down-on-their-luck folks with nowhere else to go and no money to get anything better. Sometimes a traveling worker pressing hard to get home to their family faster would show up while driving through the night to down some coffee, or parties of local teens across the whole county would hang out hours past curfew. It didn't matter who they were or why they were there or even when, the Foxhole had a seat and meal waiting for anyone that needed it.

That didn't mean it had to be well-stocked in the middle of the night. Usually a one-man staff could run the whole show no problem, and Wymack slept light and kept his phone next to his bed just in case there was one.

...

Andrew Minyard pulled into the Foxhole parking lot at 2am on a weeknight: the height of the slump. He was not an addict, homeless, a traveling businessman, or a local punk, so really he had no business being at a diner in the middle of nowhere an hour away from his house (Andrew rather notoriously sped). Except he couldn't sleep, and whenever he couldn't sleep, he came to the Foxhole.

He'd first stumbled upon the eyesore diner on an aimless midnight joyride four years ago counting mile markers in hopes that once, just once, he could sleep through the night if he numbed his brain. Like every other midnight moth to the Foxhole's neon orange flame, he'd ended up in the parking lot by happenstance and desperation, and found its doors open to him (a novelty, to someone who'd been thrown out of more homes than he could on his fingers).

He'd been the only customer that night. Just him, the grumpy old owner, the old record player, and the best pancakes he'd ever had. They hadn't spoken at all that first night. Andrew had just pointed to the menu and the owner had just nodded, and fifteen minutes later he was slowly tearing off chunks of his pancakes while the owner went about his business on the other side of the restaurant. Eventually, the carbs and lilting oldies music succeeded in making his eyelids heavy so he payed his bill and slipped out. He managed almost four uninterrrupted hours of sleep after he made it back to Columbia.

The routine took time to develop. Andrew didn't go back to the Foxhole for almost a month after that first time, and when he finally did (under the same sleepless circumstances) it proceeded much the same. In the entire first six months that he visited the diner he and the owner didn't exchange a single word. The old man would nod to him when Andrew came in and when he left, and eventually Andrew nodded back. Sometimes there were other people in the diner, usually not. Some faces showed up more than once, locals; most were strangers, interlopers like him. He'd worked his way methodically through the diner's entire menu, and never found it lacking, and told himself that was the only reason he kept coming back. Certainly not the quiet understanding in the owner's eyes that said, "You can hide from it here, whatever you're running from. I'll always be here. You can take as long as you need."

It pissed him the fuck off, actually. How dare that old bastard look at Andrew like he had any idea what sorts of monsters chased him out of bed each night to run himself ragged in order to sleep. He didn't know, and he never would. So fuck him for looking at Andrew like he ever could.

Yet week after sleepless week, Andrew slipped out of house and drove to the middle of nowhere just to sit silently in the aggressively orange diner and listen to the staticy jukebox with the hum of the hundred neon lights running underneath it.

...

Four years later and Andrew was a regular. His insomnia chased him there from his bed at least twice a week, and on Sundays he took Nicky and Aaron there for brunch. He had come to know Wymack and his very annoying son, Kevin. He knew the manager of the diner, Dan Wilds - who did not like him - and the local do-gooder, Renee Walker - who did. He knew the town regulars - and some of the not-so-regulars - that lingered at night. The Foxhole was his diner - his place.

In the last year especially, he'd been going increasingly often. Wymack should offer him a job rather than just waive his food bills for all the time he spent there. It started to feel like rather than the diner lulling him to sleep when he couldn't, he now needed it to be able to drift off in the first place. Andrew was never as relaxed as within the Foxhole's walls. It was the first place he'd ever felt truly... comfortable.

Maybe a bit too comfortable.

He hadn't been in three weeks now, and he was coiled tight as a spring, ready to snap, but with no release - just a constant pressure building and building. He had no appetite, was sleeping worse than he ever had, unable to sit still, and shaking out of his skin.

As he reached the exit ramp and got the first look at the ridiculously orange building down below, the brightest thing for miles, he went through a series of wild contradictions. His chest constricted but his shoulders relaxed. He could finally breathe, but there was no air. He almost turned around but instead tightened his hands on the steering wheel and pressed the gas peddle down further.

It took both forever and no time at all to reach the gravel parking lot. There was only one other car, a boxy old Toyota that Andrew knew well, which meant it was just him and the night shift.

He sat in the car for a long time and watched the diner from the outside. It either had a retro fifties aesthetic or had actually been around since the fifties, unchanged. It was covered in miles of orange neon tubing, dozens of signs, so many it was hard to identify any one picture. Wymack said he didn't care what it looked like, so long as people could see it. It looked like it was on fire.

Nothing moved inside. Eventually, Andrew gave up waiting for a sign, so he opened the door and got out of the car. He felt like he was walking up to his own execution, but when he stepped into the building it was the same flat, bright lights and checkerboard linoleum it had always been. As if nothing had changed; as if Andrew hadn't changed anything.

The Supremes floated through the air and someone was humming along while they clattered about in the kitchen. Andrew played dumb, pretended he didn't know who it was, that the car outside had been borrowed. But no one else ever took the graveyard shift. Even Wymack stayed home these days. So Andrew just stood there in the middle of the empty diner and pretended that someone else was about to walk out of the kitchen. Maybe Wilds - who would ignore him - or Boyd - who would try to make small talk that Andrew would ignore. Across the room, the pinball machine flashed and beeped, and Andrew stood rooted to the spot.

Feet scuffed the floor. Dan didn't come out of the kitchen. Neither did Boyd, Wymack, Gordon or anyone else. Neil did.

Of course Neil did, because Neil always worked the overnight shift. He had since he stumbled into Palmetto a year ago, scared and hurt and was immediately been swept up into the fold of Wymack and his Foxes. He didn't sleep much more than Andrew did. He liked the quiet at night. He got nervous around too many customers at once. He thought the scars that littered his face would scare people away.

No one else but Neil Josten would be working the Foxhole at 2 am on a weeknight, but god Andrew wished someone else was.

When Neil saw Andrew standing there he stopped in his tracks. He jerked like he'd been shocked and dropped the mixing bowl he'd been holding with a clang. Neil looked at Andrew with his deer-in-the-headlights eyes and slack jaw, unmoving, for what felt like forever.

Andrew didn't know what was going to happen next. He half-thought Neil would turn and run, like Andrew had three weeks ago, and half-thought Neil would yell and scream and rage at him, like he should have done three weeks ago. Instead, he just stood there and stared and stared at Andrew in silence.

The song on the jukebox changed, Nina Simone now.

Finally, Neil spoke, but all he said was, "You're back," at a whisper, like he was genuinely shocked. And of course he was. If it had been Neil that had run three weeks ago, he'd be halfway across the world by now. New name, new story, new everything. But Andrew wasn't the type to cut and run from his problems (or so he thought).

Neil tried again. "Andrew," he said with a voice so strained it hurt to hear. He wanted to talk about it, and of course he did, but Andrew - the weak fool that he was - couldn't.

What did he think would happen? That he would wander back in after tearing everything between them to shreds and Neil would act as if nothing had happened? That they would play pinball and split a milkshake and everything would be fine?

(Maybe he hadn't believed it would happen, but he'd wanted it to).

"Don't," he grumbled, hoarse; he would hold this off as long as he could. When Neil looked like he was about to argue, Andrew said it again, louder, more forceful. "Don't." And Neil backed down. Because of course he did. Because Neil listened to whatever Andrew said. Because Neil didn't trample all over the lines drawn in the sand between them.

They looked at each other for a long time. Dark bags hung under Neil's eyes and his skin clung too close to his face. Andrew knew he didn't look much better.

But Neil still looked good, in that wild, unreal way of his. He wore the god-awful orange pinstripe uniform that Wymack didn't actually make his employees wear but that Neil liked anyway and that Andrew imagined peeling off of him. His hair floated around his face where it escaped the tie holding it back. Andrew missed when he could play innocent about dragging it back behind Neil's ear. He couldn't do that anymore.

Pink and red hearts literred Neil's cheekbones, and belatedly Andrew remembered that it was Valentine's day, or maybe close? He didn't know, actually. He'd stopped keeping track of time in any way except "Five days since he ran away from Neil," "Two weeks since he ruined everything with Neil." Wilds or Boyd or someone was always putting stickers on Neil's face, over the scars he was so self-conscious about. They said it was because he was such a 'good noodle,' which was disgustingly stupid, but Neil never took them off. They made him smile. Andrew preferred stars or flowers or anything else. The hearts made Neil look too romantic, and that wasn't fair.

Eventually, Neil turned slightly and gestured back into the kitchen. "The stove is broken again," he murmered. "Wymack thought he was going to have to get a real repairman in soon, if you didn't-" he stumbled, ducked his head and broke eye contact, "If you didn't come back." He trailed off, then added, "Soon," softly, like an afterthought. Neil and his stupid, reckless faith.

Andrew couldn't say anything back to that. So instead he silently made his way around the counter and back into the kitchen, making sure to give Neil a wide berth even while he felt Neil's eyes on him the whole way.

The number two reason Wymack treated Andrew so well were his technical skills (the number one was Wymack's indulgent heart). Since he was a child he'd devoted considerable time and effort into being self-sufficient. That plus his memory and naturally nosy nature lead him to become a more than adept handyman. Plenty of his skills came from unsavory roots, but his history of theft, b&e's, and car jackings ended up expanding into more official skills during his stint in juvie and then his high school's tech ed department.

Wymack owned two ancient grill-top stoves that were always breaking down but that he refused to replace. He claimed they were like castiron, that he'd cultivated a seasoning on them and he would be damned if he got rid of it. The food just wouldn't taste the same. The first real conversation he and Andrew ever had happened with Andrew's waist deep in the things' guts. From there, Andrew had become the diner's unofficial mechanic, paid under the table in food. It was a good deal, and he'd weaseled plenty of good quality tools out of it too. After four years, there was hardly anything left in the Foxhole that he hadn't patched up, trouble-shot, installed, or rebuilt. (If he spent his down time watching tech specialist YouTube videos, no one had to know).

Wriggling under the stove with the toolkit Wymack left him was familiar. The terrible strained silence of Neil standing at his feet but not saying anything was not. The dead air hung heavy between them as Andrew worked, just the clank and squeal of metal on metal against the omnipresent background hum of the neon lights. Usually Neil would talk, would chatter about stupid useless things he'd seen or heard or thought that he was convinced Andrew would find interesting while Andrew played at irritation. Neil had a soothing voice, it almost didn't matter what he said, except that he was also very good at saying things that got a rise out of Andrew. The hollow silence echoed off the wall dropped between them.

He missed the sound of Neil's voice. He missed the dumb things Neil talked about. He missed hearing about Neil's stupid, batshit life. He missed Neil's fidgety body language and careful hands and his ringing laugh and pensive eyes and wicked smile. He missed Neil.

'Well too fucking bad, idiot," he thought to himself,"You can't have him back.'

Wrapped up in his self-pity, Andrew lost his concentration and when he yanked too hard on the stuck pipe obstructing the fuel line it came out full force faster than he expected. The side of his hand glanced off a sharp metal edge, tearing through his skin with a jagged burst of pain. He gritted his teeth and sucked in a gasp, dropping his wrench and curling his hand to his chest.

At his feet, Neil jumped in alarm, exclaiming, "Andrew! What happened? Are you okay?"

Examining his hand, Andrew found a gash along the thick side of his palm that was long but not as deep as he'd expected. Checking that he could still form a fist, and then deeming the injury superficial, he grunted back, "Nothing," at Neil, grabbed his wrench and went back to work. Blood dripped down his wrist and he would need to wash his armbands and shirt when he got home, but he was almost finished anyway. He could wait five minutes to get a bandaid. The pain righted his head, drove out all his pointless angst and grounded him in the moment. Maybe he deserved it.

Sliding out of the stove, he found Neil hovering uncomfortably close. Once he stood up Neil leaned in even closer, brows furrowed and mouth pinched down. He was too close, Andrew would have stepped back but he had nowhere to go, so instead he angled his head away at the other side of the room and refused to look at Neil.

"It should work now," he grumbled, and prepared to push past Neil to get some space.

But Neil, idiot that he was, didn't even acknowledge what he said. "You're bleeding," he said instead, reaching down for Andrew's hand. He didn't touch, just hovered his fingers near Andrew's wrist and watched his face for a sign.

And Neil's devotion to respecting Andrew's bodily autonomy was far more painful than his hand.

Andrew jerked his arm out of the way and shoved past Neil. "It's nothing," he growled.

Except Neil had also never tolerated Andrew's bullshit, either. He whipped around to get in Andrew's way, putting his hands up to hover in front of Andrew's shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. They were nose to nose. "Let me see," Neil demanded." Then his voice softened, worry and concern and all the things he shouldn't feel for Andrew - not ever, definitely not anymore - as he hovered his hands at Andrew's wrist again, "You're hurt."

"It's nothing," Andrew repeated, but he let Neil take his hand and raise it up to his face to examine the damage.

Andrew watched Neil's face as he looked. His hand was drenched in blood, but hand wounds bled. It wasn't worth getting worked up over. But Neil's brow knit together and he looked so goddamned concerned as he assessed the ragged wound.

He was so close. Their toes touched. Andrew could count his stickers and freckles and goddamn eyelashes. The last time they'd been so close...

And all at once it was too much. It all came back in the awful, hyper-vivid detail that Andrew's perfect memory rendered all his worst memories in.

...

He remembered the obnoxious customer that wouldn't stop hitting on Neil, some asshole on a business trip who thought his expensive suit meant he could do whatever he wanted to the poor country bumpkins in a diner in the middle of nowhere. He'd been slimy, lewd, and obviously thought he was very suave. He'd kept sliding his paws all over Neil every chance he could, over the backs of his hands and up his arms. No matter how much Neil had shaken him off, he'd kept grabbing and leering and whispering filth about what he could do, what he could offer, as if Andrew couldn't hear him. But Neil had warned him off already, and Neil was a big boy who could fight his own battles, he could handle himself once this sleezebbag finally stepped over the final line. Andrew didn't own him.

It hadn't stopped him from grinding his jaw and clenching his fists where he'd leaned against the counter, stroking the knives in his armbands and never taking his eyes off the two. It was when the bastard leaned up and whispered something in Neil's ear that made his eyes blaze and he had turned his back to storm away, and the sack of shit slapped his ass with a laugh that Andrew had finally snapped.

Neil had whipped around like a hurricane to tear the guy a new one but Andrew had been across the room like lightning. He'd snapped the perve's head back with a fist, felt his nose crack underneath it. Grabbing the guy's hand, he'd squeezed and twisted until something snapped. Then he'd pressed a knife against the pig's throat and held it there, cutting a thin red line against his nice white skin. He'd been screaming and crying and blubbering, getting blood and tears and snot all over his nice expensive suit, but Andrew had been unmoved. He'd been going to look piggy in the eye when he cut open his jugular.

Only Neil's hand waving placidly in his face had distracted him. Without letting go of his grip, Andrew had turned his head to look at Neil hovering to his side. Boredly, he'd drawled, "Let him go, Andrew. He's not worth the investigation."

Piggy had sobbed even louder, so Andrew'd pressed his knife a little more into his throat to shut him up, but hadn't taken his eys off Neil's. "He touched you," he'd snarled, voice deadly and precise.

Neil'd rolled his eyes, "And I was going to deal with it. You're not my fucking boyfriend, Andrew. Let go."

For a second Andrew had held perfectly still, then all at once dropped the blubbering coward like he was diseased. He'd fallen forward sobbing and gasping as Andrew and Neil had regarded him dispassionately.

Neil had leaned down until they were level, and grinned, "Well I'd say you've learned a lesson here about not touching people without their consent. Be grateful you get to walk away. Now," his voice had become razor sharp, "Get the fuck out of my diner."

When piggy hadn't responded right away and just continued crying on the table, smearing blood and snot everywhere, Andrew had grabbed him by the hair and dragged him - tripping and tumbling and clutching his broken hand - across the restaurant, throwing him bodily out the door.

Turning his back, Andrew's eyes had latched automatically onto Neil, checking for any hurts he might be hiding. He'd seemed unruffled, body loose and expression untroubled except for the overexaggerated scrunch of his nose where he regarded the booth where the son of a bitch had been sitting.

He'd looked at Andrew and whined, "He pissed himself, Andrew, that's so gross." When Andrew'd pulled up beside him and just shrugged, Neil had pursed his lips in a fake-annoyed scowl. "You know I need to clean that up," he'd complained, "I should make you do it, it's your mess." He hadn't, though. Neil had went to get the bleach and cleaning supplies, muttering under his breath just loud enough to make sure Andrew heard, "blood and piss, great, awesome. Dumb pervert has to go and make my night even worse, can't even face down a knife, what a -" until the sound of his voice had faded away.

Left alone, Andrew had taken stock of himself, feeling the tension still pulling his muscles. He had felt supercharged, out of control. Seeing someone lay hands on Neil like that had snapped something in him and he hadn't known how to handle it. He'd been on a knife's edge when he'd attacked, ready to tear the scumbag's throat out, and he'd still been on that knife's edge ten minutes later, while Neil had mopped, scrubbed, and bleached down the whole area, complaining theatrically the entire time. Andrew hadn't heard any of it, he'd stood stock still staring at his knife, tipping a drop of blood back and forth methodically across the blade. Looking at Neil had felt too dangerous.

He hadn't noticed the room had gone silent for a long time. Eventually, he'd looked up from his knife at Neil hovering in front of him, hair pulled back and latex gloves on, still holding the mop. "Hey," he'd murmured, to get Andrew's attention, and Andrew had searched his face and found nothing dark lingering there. "You didn't have to do that. I was about to give that creep hell, and I could've handled myself fine, but," he'd smiled a little, just a little quirk at the edge of his lips, and his voice had gotten too earnest, his eyes too soft, "Thanks, anyway."

Then he'd snatched the bloody knife out of Andrew's hand with a, "Now gimme that," and disappeared again.

Everything had gone blurry, Neil and his little smiles and his blue eyes and his sass and the snowflake stickers on his cheeks and the timbre of his voice had echoed all around Andrew, through him. So goddamn loud, until there hadn't been anything else.

Then Neil was back, all cleaned up, moving in high definition through an indistinct world, saying, "Maybe you should be my boyfriend." Then he'd laughed, like it'd been funny. He'd handed Andrew his knife back, cleaned, and Andrew hadn't even felf it in his hand, had just felt the elctric spark of Neil's fingers against his own. "Anyone tries to hit on me again, I can just go, 'Nah, that's my boyfriend over there, he's super protective' or 'Sorry, can't. I've got boyfriend. Yea it's really serious.'" Everything had started spinning, but Neil had just kept talking. "Oh! Dan and Matt and Alli are always tring to talk me into blind dates or whatever. If I tell them you're my boyfriend they'll finally stop! They'll also have a conniption. It's perfect-"

Something must have clued him in that something was wrong, maybe the look on Andrew's face, because he'd cut himself off abruptly. Then, hesitantly, he'd asked, "Andrew? Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Then he'd been back in front of Andrew again, with his eyes and his hair and his scars and his freckles and his stickers and and and

"I'm just joking, alright?"

And Andrew had snapped.

He'd surged forward, wrapping one hand around the back of Neil's head and the other around his waist and dragged him in, crashing their mouths together in a paniced, frantic, broken-hearted kiss that would linger on Andrew's mouth until the day he died. He'd kissed Neil with all his wild, nameless emotions that he couldn't reign in anymore. He'd kissed Neil for all his smiles and his laughter and quiet understanding. He'd kissed Neil for all the times he'd thought about him as he fell asleep and then again when he woke up. He'd kissed Neil like he'd always, always wanted to.

And Neil hadn't kissed him back.

Neil hadn't kissed him back but hadn't... not kissed him back, hadn't pulled away, hadn't slapped him or yelled or run. Had gone completely still and soft in Andrew's arms, had let Andrew pull him so close and kiss him desperatly until he couldn't breathe anymore, trying to let him know "this is what you do to me; this is what I could do to you."

Then Andrew had pulled back with a jerk and a gasp and looked at what he'd done with the shock of a man who'd just pushed the button on the atomic bomb.

Neil's eyelashes had fluttered against his cheeks and his lips been parted, but when he'd opened his eyes they'd been nothing but dazed and confused.

"Andrew," Neil'd tried, shaky and lost, "Andrew, what..." Andrew'd felt the bomb go off.

"Why did you..." He'd seen the mushroom cloud; he'd still had a hand on Neil's waist.

"I don't..." No survivors.

So Andrew had thrown him backwards, had removed his hands from Neil like he burned to the touch (and he did, the feel of him was burned permanently into Andrew's skin), and run. He'd heard Neil call out "Wait!" behind him, but he'd already been gone. Out the door, in his car, and hitting the road as fast as his spedometer would allow, the trees and the signs and the asphalt blurring together into one bleak, gray blur as he'd smashed the speed limit to smithereens to get away from the worst, stupidest thing he'd ever done.

He'd kissed Neil without asking. Neil, who wasn't interested, who was all but repelled by sex and relationships, who would rather lie to his friends about a fake boyfriend than have them ask him about his dating life again. He'd kissed Neil without asking right after breaking a man's hand and nose for touching him. He'd torn everything between him and Neil to shreds, lit it on fire, and pissed in the ashes. He'd destroyed everything.

When'd he'd gotten back to the house in Columbia the sun had been just cresting the horizon, orange. He'd crawled into bed, numb, and pulled his sheets over his head. He'd wished he could fall asleep so he could never wake up.

...

He shouldn't have come back to the Foxhole. He should have cut his losses and let Neil go, let him recover and move on and hopefully never have to think about Andrew again.

But he was weak, so weak, and he'd come crawling back. And there Neil was, like a dream, covered in hearts, looking at Andrew like he cared he'd been gone, like he'd wanted him to come back, taking his hand, cleaning his wound.

It was all too much.

They sat across from each other at a booth with the first aid kit between them, Andrew's injured hand in both of Neil's as he cleaned off the blood, applied antibiotic, and wrapped it in a bandage. Frank Sinatra drifted over from the jukebox, low and sad.

Even once he'd finished, Neil didn't let go of Andrew's hand. He held it gently in both of his and ducked his head, avoiding Andrew's eyes. Then, he said, "I want to talk about it," low and solemn.

Andrew's shoulders tensed up immediately and he tried to jerk his hand back, but Neil didn't let go. He held on tight and turned his blue eyes on Andrew, blazing. "No," he hissed, "you don't get to run away again. You owe me an explanation at least."

Andrew stared at him, rocks in his throat. All he managed to ground out was, "I shouldn't have done it."

Neil looked sad at that, lost and confused. "Then why did you?"

Why had he? Because he was crazy? Because he was stupid? Because he was self-destructive? Because he dreamed about holding Neil's hand and running his fingers through his hair? Because it hurt too much to hear Neil laugh at the idea of them being together?

In the end, though, all he said was, "I couldn't stop myself."

Neil ran his fingers along Andrew's pensively. "So you wanted to-" he stuttered, "You want to- Kiss me, and all that stuff. You like me, like that."

Andrew was far too deep for denial anymore. He'd already dug his grave, time to lay in it. "Yes."

"You never said anything."

Andrew paused, took a long breath in and let it out slowly. Of course he'd never said anything. Just being in Neil's presence was enough - should have been enough - confessing would only have driven a rift of expectation between them. "There was no point," he said finally, "You don't see people like that."

"How do you know?" Neil snapped, and for a moment the whole world froze. But then it broke again just as fast. Andrew knew better than to get his hopes up. Why Neil was toying with him like this he didn't know. Maybe it was revenge.

"You said, Neil," Andrew reminded him, "Over and over. You don't feel that way about people."

Neil curled forward, tucking his chin to examine their hands, his fingers playingnervously over Andrew's. "What if I was wrong?" he asked, "What if I can feel that way?" He leaned his head back to look in Andrew's face beseechingly, "What if I do?"

If this was revenge, it was the coldest, cruelest kind. Andrew would rather Neil hit him, screamed at him, cursed his name and thrown him out than play these games with him.

And if he meant it? That was even worse. If the only way Neil could conceptualize a friend violating him like Andrew had was by tricking himself into thinking he felt something back, that was worse than any physical pain.

He extracted his hand from Neil's, lay Neil's hands down flat on the table and drew his own back into his lap. "I kissed you," he began, "And it was wrong. I didn't ask, I just took it from you." He spoke as callously and apathetically as he could, so his voice wouldn't shake, wouldn't betray him, "Don't try to justify it. Don't delude yourself out of some misplaced sense of obligation."

In an instant, Neil's face flared with fury. He slammed his hands on the table hard enough to shake it. "Don’t tell me how I feel!" he shouted.

Then the anger melted away as fast as it appeared, replaced with something nascent and vulnerable. He curled his hands together shakily. "I don't know what I feel," he whispered, "I don't know anything," Then he curled his hands into fists, and his voice became resolute, "But neither do you. All I know is I want to try again."

That was it, that went over the line Andrew had already pushed and pushed to the breaking point. He couldn't handle this anymore. He roared, rose out of his seat, "I fucking assaulted you, Neil!"

But Neil flashed right back, "You surprised me!" They met in the middle, raging, and both backed down. Neil slid his hands palms down across the table, entreating, never breaking eye contact. "I was shocked... and confused," he began, "But you didn't hurt me." Andrew recoiled, very slightly, even though he wanted to reach out for the hand Neil offered. "Whatever you think you did," he breathed," You're wrong. Whatever mistake you think you made, I forgive you." It tasted like absolution, too good to be true, and Andrew felt his body collapse in on itself in relief. He could breathe again, the vice on his chest released.

And Neil just kept talking. He nudged Andrew's fingers with his own, sliding underneath to take his hand. "I can't stop thinking about it, Andrew," he whispered, "About you." Slowly, he rose from his seat and swung around the table, leaning closer and closer. "When you left, I-" he faltered, face darkening, "And when you didn't come back..." he bit his lip, eye clouded. Then with a shake he continued, even more insistent than before. "That hurt, more than anything else. I was..." he was so close, speaking so softly, "Scared, that I'd never see you again." They were toe to toe, Andrew tilting his head back to look at Neil standing above him. He couldn't move. Neil cupped his hand between them. "I don't know what will come from it," he admitted, "But I have to try, okay?" He raised Andrew's hand up to his face, "I have to know," pressed it against his cheek, "So ask me."

Andrew was frozen, choking on his heart in his throat. He couldn't respond, couldn't move, could only stare wide eyed up at Neil.

Neil took a halfstep back and brought Andrew with him, tugging him to his feet until they were nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye. He hovered a hand next to Andrew's face, not touching, not yet. When he spoke, Andrew felt the breath on his lips, "Andrew, kiss me again."

He leaned into Neil's hand, felt it brush agaist his skin in a rush. He brought his other hand, dangling at his side, up and wrapped it around Neil waist, pulling him in until their lips were the only parts of them not touching. "I'm going to kiss you," he breathed, "Yes or no?"

"Yes," Neil said, eyes already falling closed, already leaning in the last inch.

So Andrew kissed him, and Neil kissed back.

#@aftgexchange #@black-glasses-and-books #aftg #andreil #fic #diner au #my posts

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blissfulsaturn · 5 years ago

Text

I’m sorry it took so long but i was actually working on the video for the scene analysis.

Honestly, as much as it looks like there isn’t much to say here about this scene, there are few things that are very worth point out. This scene happened after the one where Elio admitted having feelings for Oliver and in the end, he did say “Does that mean we’re on speaking terms but not ready?”, to which Oliver replied “We can’t talk about those kinds of things. We just can’t.”. The scene between the expressing their feelings and their first kiss is this one with them riding to Elio’s spot. You’d think that what Elio said would kinda chase Oliver away but Oliver never denied having those feelings for him as well, so it only left them to see what more can come out of this. If Oliver were truly uncomfortable with what Elio and, that would mean that Elio was very wrong when it came to reading Oliver and his body (which is not foreign, nobody understands Oliver, even the guy who made up this character admitted not really understanding Oliver), and that would leave a very weird vibe between them. But it didn’t. You know why it didn’t? Because Oliver feels the same way for Elio as he does for Oliver, but he “can’t talk about those kinds of things”, and why? Was it because he was already in an on/off relationship with a woman, or because he didn’t want to hurt Elio?

So, Oliver stays with him, he doesn’t ride off home because Elio expressed his feelings towards him. Oliver follows him. He has no idea where they’re going. Elio knew he wasn’t gonna stop there, no sir. He wanted Oliver so badly that he took him to his special spot, only Oliver has ever been there, nobody else. Elio, being the little fox that he is, must’ve known something more was gonna happen because Oliver decided to stay and not rush home because that would mean that Elio was wrong and their entire friendship would take a totally different turn.

Now, as they’re riding to Elio’s special spot, we have this beautiful view of Northern Italy and the country side. Honestly, the entire movie brings out such warmth inside me, regarding the nature and the location. The fields, trees, the Sun, the sky, roads, the grass, everything really, and with a very soothing music in the background. It makes you wanna jump onto your bike and ride and see the entire country side of Italy. It is stunningly beautiful. And not to mention, how the boys have their clothes and colors almost in sync, and with the nature, that vibe just kicks it right in.

Love the camera work. The camera watches them going to a certain point where they’re both out of breath, well, Oliver more because we can see him and then Elio hits the breaks when he’s noticed Oliver stopped as well. Oliver rides next to him. “Ready?”, Oliver asks. “Let’s go”, Elio replies and they ride off.

We watch them drive off and even though we can’t see them for some period of time, the camera is still filming them as they’re fading away. Which could mean that, while the camera stood still, so did the time, and we follow their every move, we see them getting closer to each other and then running of into the world and that's why they're fading away and we can't see them anymore because they're not to be seen, they want privacy and we should let them fade away together.

Another take is :In the beginning of the scene, we have a close up of Oliver, then Elio pops up, then Oliver goes closer to him and they drive off. Kinda like showing us the closest and the farthest part of their relationship but only doing backwards. We see them starting in the very wast and distant past, as the time goes by their relationship progresses, at the very end (or beginning of the scene) Elio overtakes him, hits the breaks and waits for him (which is what happened, Elio stopped his entire love life or life in general, and waited for Oliver for the next 20 years. Yes, there were others, but Oliver was one of a kind, and his first, the one who was worth waiting for), and in the end, we can see only Oliver’s face, kinda indicating the only true love Elio has ever had that shifted his entire system and changed his life forever; this is the reason why the young Elio was so shookt.

Timothée himself said, in the commentary video, that, even though we can’t see it, Armie over takes him here and he basically has to race with him to get to him. Such goofballs! And towards the end of the video, you can really see Timmy peddling faster to get to Armie or to over take him.

Giving the prior scene, they’re both feeling good around each other and were off to something even more important and deeper and very crucial to their friendship.

scene analysis requested by @chickadeewild

❤️

#call me by your name #scene analysis

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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years ago

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TRACK BY TRACK BREAKDOWN: Waves LP by Kelly McMichael

Kelly McMichael is known for her commanding vocals and stage presence as well as her classic-sounding songwriting and arranging skills. She is able to fiercely conduct musical forces by layering vocal harmonies, producing beats, riffing on guitars and serenading at the piano. Kelly has toured Canada, the UK and the US with various projects, most recently keys and vocals with Sarah Harmer.

Kelly McMichael’s debut full-length album Waves, out today, displays a wide range of rock sounds and marks a transition from her electronic based project RENDERS. It has taken years to find the right circumstances to bring these arrangements to life, and she finally found them by the ocean with the support of engineer, co-producer and drummer Jake Nicoll (The Burning Hell), and multi-instrumentalists Sarah Harris (Property), and Maria Peddle. Kelly is keeping busy with musical explorations and dreaming of rock and roll concerts and she can’t wait to tour again.

We asked Kelly to breakdown Waves track-by-track to give us more insight into what the songs on the LP are about. Read it below.

I Missed Out On Everything

Written a few years ago but it resonates with the last year we've had. It’s about getting older, reminiscing about the past and not feeling satisfied in my current state. I was conflicted about how to be a grown-up and the idea of having to get a "real" job. At the time I was feeling pressure to have a more stable career instead of continuing to pursue the almost impossible goal of being a musician. And I was also feeling bored in a long-term relationship. I hope it's consoling in a fun way... like, “crap there goes a whole year of our lives... let's play some rock and roll about it”.

Out The Window

Two friends convince each other to raise the bar. They realize they deserve better than their jobs and partners, and are saying “fuck it”. So they go treat themselves to a night out on the town / road trip sorta thing... bit of a Thelma and Louise vibe. It’s not about being selfish and destructive. They deserve better and they are standing up for themselves, making a change and maybe being a little bad for once.

Stepping Stone

‘Stepping Stone’ questions how the pursuit of success in the music industry can impact the nature of a relationship. I’m reaching out for understanding while sifting through themes of ambition, loyalty, and jealousy. It was inspired by a working relationship with someone who seemed to move on without ever looking back. I combined other experiences of witnessing people moving through their careers and social connections, wondering what qualifies as good business, or just ‘how things are’, and not pointing any fingers but wishing there was more room for genuine, honest friendships.

She Makes Men

A very good looking man who all the girls had a crush on falls in love with a lesbian. Figures, she’s the one woman he can’t have. It was about a bit of a love triangle I was in in university. I had a crush on him, he had a crush on her and she had a crush on me. I realized he was actually getting some value out of spending time with a woman who wasn’t pining for him, by learning to view other girls as whole people, not just as these flakey giggly crush monsters.

It Will Pass

Gently talking myself through some depression, trying to access the advice-giver, helper, supporting part of my brain to console the depressed part. It’s as though I’m consoling somebody else but it really was written for myself. It has a comforting, optimistic tone to it but it opens up into the heaviness that I was feeling inside myself and you can hear the emotion and struggle at the climax “believe me, I’ll try to believe myself,” then there’s a chaotic jam with the band which resolves into a peaceful spacey feeling at the very end, like the calm after the storm.

Good Friends

I wanted to write a song about friendship because I don’t think there are enough of those. It also addresses a popular notion that one day your love will come save you, but we shouldn’t be relying on love to do that, and we shouldn’t be so ready to give up our lives and friends for love. A strong healthy love will come out of feeling secure and happy with how you have built your life and your relationships. Love as an escape, to me, is not a great idea, and there are so many songs about this.

I Won’t Stop

This was about getting unfair treatment from someone who seemed to have an unreasonable desire to squash me out of a project I was involved with years ago. It’s about being made to feel small and wrong, and realizing I didn’t deserve that, and it was more about him than me. Time to stop questioning what I did wrong, and time to feel sure of myself, and what I was doing. He got kicked off the project, so I did end up winning.

Montreal

I'm reflecting on the free, silly, frolicking of a trip long ago. Channeling the celebration of good memories and good friends. It’s a nice place to be when we can’t do that now. It’s also acknowledging that I am in a new chapter of my life, older and wiser and more responsible. I’m looking back at my youth, not longing for it like I am in ‘I Missed Out On Everything’, but just feeling satisfied and making a toast to one of the best, if not The Best, trips of my life.

Love is On Now

It’s about coming out of a very rough patch and being able to feel love and joy again. It was written before the pandemic but I hope it resonates and helps people, because depression can take away your ability to feel good things. It’s a happy ending that is meant to heal and be a reminder that life is tough, but good feelings will come back around eventually. Confronting those good feelings about a relationship that was actually ending very painfully while I was recording the album, was (and still is) extremely difficult for me. It is hard, but it is beautiful and powerful, and captures the message of the album well by including different chapters of my life and celebrating resilience - good and bad - waves - cycles - balance.

Can’t At All

This song is about struggling with the balance between my music and my relationship. Feeling guilty that music was higher on my list of priorities. I think women aren’t allowed to skip out on emotional labour in their home lives for their art the way men can. But I’m also wondering when it becomes self indulgent to pursue art. Wondering what the cost of being so wrapped up in my music is… when it breaks my heart and causes me agony a lot of the time. I’m comparing myself to another artist / influence who was so consumed by her art that it negatively impacted her relationships. I am questioning where I fit in, and where I would like to be.

Waves is out now.

#track by track breakdown #kelly mcmichael #waves

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avengers1shots · 5 years ago

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Radio Silence

Peter Parker x Reader

You're sitting on the dock, staring up at the stars. It’s quiet, it’s always quiet here. So it’s not hard to notice as something streaks across the sky. You make a wish. But the light falls closer and closer. And it’s not a star, but it’s burning. You hear a scream and watch as a body collides with the lake. You hop to your feet, quickly diving in after it. The water is dark but you follow a glint. You struggle to get back above water with the extra weight, lungs begging for air, but you push past it. You gasp as you break past the surface, pushing your way to the bank. You hoist the body into the grass, getting a proper look at the individual as you pull off a mask and begin CPR. He coughs for a moment, mumbling incoherently before falling unconscious once again.

He wakes up the next morning with a start, attempting to jump up but yelping in pain. You pause the movie you were watching and walk through the open gap into the dining room where you had left him bandaged on the table.

“I would be more careful.” You warn and he jolts in surprise at your presence.

“Who are you? What’s going on?” He breathes quickly, taking in his current state. His eyes glance at the mask resting on a chair at the edge of the room. “Where’s my suit?”

“Ruined. Burned up during your fall.” You answer first, taking a cautious step towards him.

“The fall?” He repeats taking a second to gather his thoughts. He moves to rub at his eyes and hisses in pain at the quick movement.

“You gotta take it easy.” You warn. “You got burned pretty bad too. It’s a miracle you survived once you hit the water. Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s coming back to me.” He answers. “Who are you?”

“Y/N L/N.” You reply. “And you?”

“Peter Parker.” He says, cautiously. “Who are you with y/n l/n?”

You chuckle at the odd question. “I’m not with anyone.”

“I can’t believe you managed to track where I fell, is that the kind of technology that was on the truck?”

“You took a pretty nasty fall, I think you’re heads in a weird place.” You reply as your golden retriever comes bounding into the room. Peter looks hesitant for a second but the dog simply sniffs his hand and sits expectantly.

“Oh sorry, I am with someone. This is Maizy.” You introduce and he gives her a gentle rub on the head.

“There’s nobody else here?”

“No one.”

“So you found me…”

“Yep.”

“So why aren’t I in a hospital?”

“Do you know where we are?” You inquire, chuckling lightly. “This is Green Bank.”

You begin to explain when he shoots you a confused look. “Green Bank, West Virginia. We’re in the National Radio Quiet Zone. There’s no signal or wifi or transmissions at all within thousands of miles. I could’ve hiked you up to the emergency center, but it’s a 20 mile trek. I know CPR and there’s a first aid kit, so I figured I better just keep you steady for the night.”

“Wow, so you like saved my life.” He exhales.

“Well I wouldn’t-” You begin.

“You did.” He asserts before looking out the window. “What a mess. Aunt May is gonna lose it.. God, I need to call her and tell her- oh no.”

“Yeah, no cell phone signal. But, uh, there’s a phone booth a couple miles north.” You retort. “I can give you a lift.”

“That’d be amazing, thank you so much.”

--🕸--

You peddle down the road, Peter riding behind you in the wagon. You expected some complaint as you unveiled the simple bike, but he didn’t even joke. Even as you were riding over uneven paths, bumps jostling his injuries, he remained kind, dismissing any concern you voiced.

He thanks you as you help him to his feet when you arrive at the box. He immediately begins limping the short distance and you let out a breath of amusement, calling out to stop him.

“Hey Peter?”

“Yes?” He turns, picking up the receiver.

“Do you have any money?”

His eyes widen in realization, patting himself as a reflex (and wincing) as you walk over and press a few coins into his hands.

--🕸--

After you ride him back, you recommend some low-energy activities to keep him in recovery. Though you soon realize the boy is too antsy to sit still as you attempt to reapply his bandages. So you allow him to help you put together sandwiches and some snacks before picking out a few movies and settling down.

Maizy fixes herself a spot on the couch in between you two and by the time the sun sets Peter has already crashed, the retriever snoozing beside him.

--🕸--

You wake up in the morning to the smell of smoke. It jolts you out of bed and you come racing down the stairs to find Peter dumping a few burnt pancakes into the trash can.

“Don’t worry Maize, I’m sure I’ll get it. You know what they say, 13th time’s the charm, right?” He speaks to the dog, patting her on the head.

You chuckle from your position at the bottom of the steps causing him to whip around with an embarrassed expression. “Are you trying to burn this cabin down, Parker? Because I’d really advise you to stay away from fire.”

You take a few steps into the kitchen but notice one of the burns on his arm has improved significantly. You take his elbow gently, looking over it with disbelief. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s a miracle what a good night’s sleep can do for you.” He offers.

“These take weeks to heal and you’ve jumped half the recovery period overnight.” You reply. “It’s impossible.”

“I’ve got a great immune system.” He tries instead, turning back to his pancake batter. You reach and turn down the heat from high to medium and he shoots you a grateful smile.

“I’m sure you do, Spiderman.” You retort, opening up the fridge and pulling out some orange juice. When you look back at him, he’s gawking at you. “Come on, you’re famous. I was skeptical whether that was just a costume but obviously not. I don’t live under a rock, you know.”

“Well not a rock, but this place is as off the grid as it gets. People know about superheros here?” He asks.

“Not the residents, that’s very unlikely. The military probably have intel though, they’re all over. But I don’t actually live here, it’s just a vacation cabin for spring break.” You explain. “My older brother’s staying at a place further in town with the car.”

Peter nods in understanding, finally producing flipping a perfect pancake onto a plate with a big grin. You congratulate the boy and the two of you sit down for a nice breakfast.

--🕸--

Peter suggests a day in the lake, which you caution against as his wounds are better, but still raw. He dismisses this, chirping about saltwater being good for wounds and before you get a chance to explain that isn’t exactly how it works, he’s already running towards the dock and doing a flip into the water. Maizy soon chases after him, excitedly and you watch the two for a moment before eventually joining them.

The two of you have an exciting day outdoors and by the time night falls once again, you’re back on the dock. You’re looking up at the sky, but this time he’s laying safely beside you instead of hurtling towards his death.

“Wow. I can’t believe the stars really look like this out here. It’s nothing like New York” He breathes in amazement and you nod.

“Almost no light pollution.” You explain simply. “It’s what makes coming out to the middle of nowhere worth it.”

“Because it’s so beautiful.” He says softly.

“Yeah.” You reply, turning your head to him but he’s already staring at you. Then he moves in, kissing you softly with his hand on your face.

“Sorry.” He says, pulling back sheepishly but you simply shake your head and pull him back in with a hand on the nape of his neck.

It’s a wonderful moment. That is until Maizy starts barking at the two of you, eagerly licking Peter’s face as soon as the two of you break apart. This causes you both to break into laughter and you take it all in as the best day of your vacation plays out.

--🕸--

You cycle your way into town early, trading the bicycle for the car from your brother with a bullshit-ed excuse. You pack up some snacks for the drive, preparing a bed for Maizy in the back and by the time you reappear, all ready to go, Peter has woken up. He’s stretching on the couch as you walk into the den and greets you with a big yawn. “Morning”

“How are you feeling?” You inquire, sitting beside him.

“Much better.” He confirms your suspicions and you peel away one of the bandages to find a pink scar.

“Incredible.” You mutter to yourself, before standing up, keys jingling as you do so.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asks, responding to the sound.

“You gotta get home right?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you weren’t planning on walking all the way back to New York were you?”

“You’re really willing to drive all the way back for me?”

“Yeah, I can’t keep the friendly Spiderman away from his neighborhood any longer, I think it’d be selfish. We’ll head out as soon as you're ready.”

--🕸--

The three of you embark on the journey soon after and once you pass out of the quiet zone you allow the boy reign over your phone for music. Between snacks, jokes and jamming out, the seven-hour ride passes impossibly quickly and you arrive in Queens in no time. He says goodbye to Maizy who’s asleep in the back as he exits the car before walking over to your window and giving you a parting kiss.

“You still owe me for tolls.” You joke as he pulls away, causing him to let out a light laugh.

“Thank you y/n, for saving me and, well for everything.”

“You saved me from cabin fever, let’s call it even.” You dismiss, though you feel a lump start to form in your throat. “I should go. You’ve got a world to save and I’ve gotta get this car back, so.”

“Goodbye y/n.”

“Goodbye Peter.”

He gives you one last kiss on the forehead before quickly disappearing into the night and you begin a quiet journey back.

He might not have been a shooting star, but you certainly got your wish.

A/N: I have ideas for a part two so lmk if that’s something y’all would like!

-MST ✪

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helpinghanikan · 5 years ago

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More then a Tool

Charles Xavier x (Daughter) Reader

Sum: There will always be that something which breaks the camel’s back. Sometimes, this is more obvious then others.

an: This was a request for A Charles Xavier with a child reader. I tried to keep with the request but my finger slipped and now the reader is mutated, an empath and it’s full of angst. I am not sorry.

Your childhood memory could be whittled down to a series of chairs. Plastic chairs that stick to your bare legs in the summer. Metal seats that scrape and drag across the tile. Sometimes you’d get nice, soft chairs, or a couch to hang out on. Those typically turned into naps.

It was during one of these memories in a spinning chair that you started to feel. The secretary you’ve been plopped next took one glance and went back to her computer. Her annoyance was coming off from her like a horrible smell. Every click on the keyboard was like a gunshot right to your temple. Just made worse by watching her; click click click she’s banging into your head. Something had to be said…

“There’s magazines by the couch, why don’t you go read them?” She suddenly orders with a quick spin of her chair.

The verbal slap took you from the chair and onto the couch. Your feet hit the ground maybe twice, practically jumping onto the couch. This sending another hit of annoyance right to your head; eyes closing against it until the secretary looked away.

Those magazines did little to help with all the new feelings. Being further away from her helped with annoyance but now frustration was rearing its ugly head. Frustration and a lie bursting through your system with colors that’d make a sunset jealous. No amount of staring at articles and pictures of people way richer than you could get rid the emotions.

With both hands on either side of your head it was only a matter of seconds before Mama Moira appears kneeling in front of you. Snapping at the secretary to reschedule everything and that they are not done just yet.

“I’m sorry,” you had muttered in the car.

“It’s okay, they weren’t going to give me anything. Lawsuit threats will do that.” She says, a gentle hand rubbing your back.

“They’re threatening you?” You ask.

“It’s more like an,” she pauses to think how to best explain. Her hand pausing in it’s movements as she things. “it’s an aggressive suggestion. Nothing to worry about, Sweetie.”

“I think they were lying, though.” This idea was coming out of your mouth before you stop it. The soft hand of comfort has that power. “They’re lying about law suiting you.”

“You try calling that bluff with a lawyer next to you,” She says, pulling her hand away. “Oh, Sweetie, could you hear through the door? I’m so sorry.”

“No, I mean-I couldn’t hear. I just know they’re lying, mom.”

“How could know that?”

“I just do, okay.”

Moira was one of those rare mothers who wasn’t going to dig and dig for info you couldn’t give. Instead she focused on the road ahead of her, both physically and metaphorically. Mentally listing off all the people she could pay or guilt trip into watching you.

Whether you looked like her or not Moira was your mother, you just happened to be the question baby. Someone she loved more than anything but also an ironic reminder of her memory loss. In the interest of saving time she didn’t dwell on it too long, now just living with the new nickname of ‘Mama Moira.’

Moira never outright said what happened after following your advice. Only that your babysitter lasted for a single night, then you were back in a chair. This time sitting in the room just a few feet behind your mother. Staring at magazines while trying to feel something you didn’t really understand.

0-0-0

The closest Charles got to looking through a hospital window at his child was cerebro. The first was just to check up: How were you doing? Healthy? Happy? Back then you were just a baby staring at space. Sometimes into Moira’s face who would either coo or talk to you like a colleague. Asking for a baby’s opinion on whether there were any typos in her report.

He never really learned whether she did fix those typos. Over the years you became just another one of his children. A blue bundle of stars in cerebro that grew every time he searched for the others. Teachers and students came and became part of the school as your chairs were moved inside the meetings.

Once or twice he sat in on those meetings with you. Setting just on the edge of your mind without intruding on any secrets. Just enough to taste your empathy, and see your legs swinging while on sitting on those chairs. The unexpected consequence of his check ins came from the emotions connected to his brain.

A warmer, cool blue of pride that’s felt in your head without seeing who it was coming from. Typically, these stupid emotions came off strongest from the person closest to you. The closest was a woman whispering into another woman’s ear. She was like you, someone sitting just behind the action. Briefly mentioned as the translator, she wrote and spoke quietly.

Focusing solely on her and the blue faded in exchange for a mix of orange from fear and green from focus. Green was so overbearing only the slightest hint of anything else showed, and only when she was listening and writing. No hint of blue to be found.

Focusing on the others and the color could be found there sometimes. But those gave off a darker color blue then the cooler one. These were cocky, proud of themselves. They’d bleed into red when Mama Moira a certain thing, and then into fear. Sometimes into a silver lie, and those were the ones you had to remember. The rest you just had to try your best to not completely forget.

The cool blue color was easy to forget about over the years. It was just one of a rainbow of colors you were forced to learn about through your short life. From chair to chair they ranged and changed; little books filled with charts that became meaningless as more colors were added.

More chairs, more colors. One even being a helicopter, where you were supposed to be ease dropping on the emotions of your guide. Instead you were distracted by the many controls and buttons that somehow made sense to the woman behind the controls.

Although that woman was beaming a blue pride (probably from having a curious child audience) the cool blue wasn’t seen anywhere. By that point you had all but forgot about it. The curiosity only lasted as long as that first meeting had.

It was completely opposite on Charles’s end. It’s harder to forget someone when you actually know who they are. He was a father by nature; a figure to every student who has ever come into the school. They were just as much his children as you were. Seeing a bit of you, of your potential, in every one of them.

That bit hope lasted through finally being able to use his status to teach. It lasted through the adjustment to life in the chair and the care of students. It stretched into the draft when the first of the teachers began to meekly come into his office with sincere apologies. Men being called in and woman called home to help with the absents. He saw you in them too, less happily this time.

Hope began to starve after they were gone. When somewhere in the background Hank McCoy fiddles with a vial but doesn’t offer it just yet. When the school’s doors closed, and cerebro’s opened. Not searching for the children he has already lost, but the one he never forgot.

0-0-0

It’s hard to say what exactly broke the camel’s back. You’ve gotten used to keeping your sensitivity a secret. Mama Moira was open about there being others like you out there. She was open that they could be dangerous, and that you just weren’t ready yet.

Actually, it’s not that hard to find the trigger. Someone left out the wrong file and there it was: Charles Xavier’s school for gifted youngsters. Just a name and a few mentions of ‘mutant’ underlined. The poor, dumb, assistant who left it out ripping it from your hands before anything else could be read. Even with that little amount of information things started to bend.

They completely broke when Mama Moira went away. A mission where her little lie detector would be in too much danger. Instead letting one of the younger researchers play babysitter. A nice woman who saw nothing wrong with answering the questions of the curious office child. Not noticing that among the questions of what books you’re allowed there was another questions about files.

Maybe with the files you should have grabbed something about helicopters.

That nice pilot woman had become one of your favorite sitters. Letting you sit next to her during rides, showing the pedals and how to work the joystick.

The lift off was the hard part. This was the mantra working through your head over and over while trying to remember the steps. Hold the joystick, play with the peddles. Oh, snap, was it actually lifting off the ground?

Riding a helicopters as it leaves the ground is one thing. Leaving the ground, knowing that whether you fly, or crash was all up to you, was an entirely different feeling. One that turned your mantra to ‘oh no, oh no, oh no’.

“Lower the throttle, get back on the ground,” orange yellow of fear suddenly slapped the sense from you. It was coming from a voice that certainly wasn’t there a few seconds ago. “It’s okay, I’m a friend. Just go slow.”

Although he is in your peripheral vision it’s impressive that you didn’t whip around to look. Your own shock and his calmed voice making landing the only thing important. Although his voice is right next to your ear there is no change in the air at his presence. Half expecting a guiding hand to be placed on your shoulder while trying to land.

The helicopter is heavy when landing. Worse then when you lifted off the ground. An equally heavy thunk announced you’re landing safely. As safely as can be given the situation.

“Why would you try this?” The man asks.

Completely turning in the pilot’s chair you can finally look at the man. White male, average height. Long brown hair and serious scruff this side of a beard. Everything about him can be described down into a file. A file that Mama Moira has more then once left out in kid’s reach.

“Are you Professor Charles Xavier?” You ask.

“You’re not answering my question.”

“And you’re not answering mine,”

He takes a second to swallow. “Yes, I’m Charles Xavier.”

“Professor Charles-?”

“Just-I’m just Charles Xavier.” He corrects before you’re able to finish. Yellow of annoyance is mixing with the orange of fear. More yellow then orange is coming out. “Why would you try something like this? Why are you putting yourself in danger?”

Being scolded like this was keeping you in, yet another, chair.

“I’m different. Like you, like the others kinda different. She says I can’t talk about it to anyone.” Charles did not need to be a mind reader to know you were referring to Moira. “I don’t belong here; I belong with you guys.”

“Why a helicopter? Why not a car?” He asks.

“I don’t know how to drive.”

It’s like watching a computer boot up. He starts by pressing his lips together and then laughing softly. Putting his head down into his hands, his body shaking a little as he softly. If it weren’t for the blue you’ve only seen a handful of times you’d assume he was crying.

It takes a second to collect himself enough to speak again. “You can’t-you can’t fly a helicopter, either.” He sputters out, laughing back into his hands.

“It was flying, I was flying it.” You didn’t really know this man, not really. His emotions were familiar, and his face was in the file. But now he was just some guy laughing at you.

“Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry,” He says. Coughing away one last laugh. “I just can’t understand your thought process about leaving.”

At some point you were going to have to explain yourself to somebody. In the event that you were caught before take off you’d stay quiet until Mama Moira came back. If you had been injured by hitting the wrong button and crashed the helicopter, you’d play the part of the poor curious child. Now, if the plan had completely succeeded and you made it to the mansion? That was a plan you had yet to make. Probably try and wing it.

Now that you were expected to explain everything in a manner of seconds everything was coming up blank. You have already the gist out, but where were the details?

“I’ve seen what you’ve already done for your mother; how you’ve helped her and this entire base. You don’t need to leave.” He says when you don’t respond.

“I don’t belong here,” It’s a reiteration of your most important point.

He’s two different shades of blue listening to you. The first blue of pride that was slapped back into the forefront of your memory and a second one. The second was pale, almost clear, a kind of sadness that you wouldn’t be able to understand enough to describe until you’re older. This blue hurt to pay too much attention to, tears peaking at your eyes from being too close. It’s better to stay by the first blue.

This color was a representation of an A plus report card brought home after nights at the kitchen table. It was what made the slight curve in his mouth nearing towards a smile. It reflected back onto you, bringing a smile that Charles saw and made his own expression drop.

“You don’t belong at the school, either. There’s no one there, it’s closed.” He confesses.

“What?” You asked.

“Everything is gone. There’s no one in the mansion anymore, it’s abandoned. Everyone has left.” He says this as the pale blue of sadness takes over the pride.

Your plan to land and become part of the mansion took an odd turn after hearing this. Instead thinking about what might have happened if your plan had completed. Landing at the mansion just to find no one there. It would have been heartbreaking to find the mansion without anyone there. How long would you have stayed before giving up?

When you don’t say anything he walks forward, talking calmly. “Your mother is a good woman. The best thing for you is to stay here. There is nothing for you with me.”

“Why are you here then?” You say this as a demand instead of a plea. Standing up to stare him in the eyes.

The pale blue has officially overtaken the pride. Tears on both your eyes are enough to end the conversation. The man who has suddenly appeared behind you disappears just as quickly. Leaving you alone as the base finally notices that a children just tried to steal a helicopter.

#reader insert #Dad!Charles Xavier #Charles Xavier #daughter reader #mutant reader #requested #empath reader #How do you write children?#What is a child?#Accidental angst

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